Children will be given an exercise plan

The youngsters will be given an exercise programme and monitored to see how it affects their weight, blood pressure and amount of body fat.

The �166,000 project is being co-ordinated by Glasgow University, Yorkhill NHS Trust and the city council.

Dr John Reilly, lead researcher at Yorkhill's Department of Human Nutrition, said: "There is an increasing belief that the promotion of physical activity should begin at an early age.

"Up until now research studies have not been large enough, or over a long enough time scale, to test how effective education strategies can be.

Obesity problem

Dr Reilly said heart disease was a disease of the blood vessels around the heart and the coronary arteries.

"It begins with lesions on those blood vessels and very alarmingly, recent studies show that these lesions were present in children and adolescents - and in children as young as three and four."

Recent research by the BHF found that only half of 11 to 16-year-olds walk for up to 10 minutes a day.

The number of obese six-year-olds has doubled in the last 10 years, while the number of obese 15-year-olds has trebled.

Dr John Reilly: Alarming findings

Only Ireland and Finland have worse records on heart disease among developed countries and the condition is estimated to cost the British economy millions of pounds every year.

Tom McQuade of the British Heart Foundation said children should be encouraged to take part in games to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

"When I was at school, you didn't have television or computers. So therefore you went outside and you played," Mr McQuade said.

"Now I accept that it is not easy to go out and play in the street in the same way that I could have done in my teens, but there are games that can be played that do not involve sitting in front of a television."