LAZY youngsters in London's East End who took part in a study to measure how much exercise they do attached the monitoring devices to their dogs to obscure the results, it emerged this week

By Gemma Collins

LAZY youngsters in the East End who took part in a study to measure how much exercise they do attached the monitoring devices to their dogs to obscure the results, it emerged this week.

More than 200 children in Tower Hamlets took part in a survey led by the Sports Medicine and Exercise Centre in Mile End when a pedometer was clipped on to their waists to measure how many steps they walked and ran.

Professor Nicola Maffulli who led the survey told the Advertiser: "The pedometers are connected to a satellite so we know how many kilometers they walk ever day.

"But after a week we found there were some kids who were extremely active but still obese.

"But then we realised they were attaching the pedometers to the collars of their dogs."

The pilot study, which took place earlier this year, revealed more than a third of 11 and 12-year-olds in the borough are overweight or obese, which is higher than the national average.

The study also revealed that boys in the borough walk or run just 12,620 steps a day when they should be doing 15,000 and girls walk or run 10,150 steps a day when their recommended daily steps are 12,000.