"Look at adverts for things like washing powder that show children getting very dirty. Any time a business wants to sell something to parents they always try to do it by using images of children outdoors," says Michael Pettavel, head of Randolph Beresford Early Years Centre in White City, London.
In practice however, getting children playing outdoors can be a minefield of rules, regulations, policy, guidelines and, most of all, fear.
"We're worried about children's safety, we're worried about them getting fat and we're worried about them not getting enough exercise," Pettavel says. "That's a really miserable way of looking at things.
"Children are safer and healthier today than they ever have been. Yet I saw a nursery equipment catalogue with exercise machines for toddlers and children. It horrified me and it's driving home this obsession with safety, and this stupidity about obesity. If we have children on a treadmill watching a screen, there's a huge problem there."
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