Online pet monsters to teach children about healthy hearts

The British Heart Foundation has launched a website that aims to teach children about the importance of looking after their hearts.

Children are invited to create their own pet monsters, and decide what they eat, how active they are, and whether they smoke or not. If children keep their pets active and give them a balanced diet, they progress in the game; otherwise their pets will die.

Debbie Allen, the charity's children and young people's programme manager, said: "Primary school age children helped create this website, telling us what they really wanted from a website and what interests them."

Last year, the British Heart Foundation launched Yoobot, which allows children to create a mini version of themselves that they can personalise with an uploaded photograph. If left alone it will begin to eat junk food all day and eventually die, allowing children to perform an autopsy to find out why.