Nowadays, children have many more opportunities to lead a healthy life than in the past because generally they live in hygienic surroundings and have plenty to eat. However, modern lifestyles mean that many children spend long hours in front of the television or computers, do not take a great deal of exercise and eat an unbalanced diet.
I believe both parents and schools can do a lot to remedy this situation. Parents should limit the time that children spend sitting down and should encourage them to take more exercise. They could, for example, play sports with them at the weekend. Schools also should include regular exercise in their timetables, with activities such as physical education and compulsory sports.
As far as diet is concerned, both parents and schools should provide children with a range of foods which include plenty of vegetables and fruit and only small amounts of fat. If children are brought up on a healthy diet, they learn responsible eating habits and this, combined with plenty of physical activity, helps them to grow into healthy adults.
On the other hand, I think that governments and health authorities have a responsibility to teach people how to create a healthy lifestyle for children. This can be done, for example, by broadcasting programmes about healthy eating on television, or by giving courses to new parents on how to bring up their children.
In conclusion, I believe that governments can encourage and help by giving information to people. However, the responsibility for bringing up children with a good healthy lifestyle lies with the people who are in regular contact with them, in other words their parents and their teachers.