Editor-At-Large: Memo to Gary and Becks - lay off the crisps and fizzy pop

I am absolutely sure that David Beckham and Gary Lineker are model dads, spending hours of quality time with their children. It's obvious they place the well-being of their offspring high on their list of priorities. So how do they square accepting thousands of pounds from advertising agencies to appear on television and billboards promoting foods that clearly have little or no nutritional value? At a time when Britain's children are fatter and more unfit than ever before, is it too much to ask that sporting heroes

who are role models for the young and impressionable desist from participating in advertising that encourages children to nag their parents into buying junk? Neither Gary nor David would think twice about turning down cigarette advertising, but are crisps and flavoured sugared water (Pepsi) really any different?

Last week MPs on the Commons health select committee scored a goal when they forced the chief executive of advertising agency Abbott Mead Vickers to apologise for encouraging children to "pester" their parents into buying them Wotsits, a product of dubious nutritional value. There is a strict code allegedly operated by the advertising industry which controls the wording in ads aimed at children. But turn on the television and you will see time and time again how these guidelines are being openly flouted.

The use of famous sporting stars is just another way for ruthless producers of junk food to get their message across to a valuable and expanding market - the young. The committee, which is investigating health and obesity, heard that £600m is spent annually persuading us to buy commercially produced food - I use the word "food" loosely - while only £2m is spent on encouraging children to eat healthily. There has never been an advertising budget promoting the consumption of vegetables - although there have been a handful of public health campaigns.

How advertising chiefs sleep at night is an interesting question. Only last week the chief executive of a tobacco company was in court claiming that he still was not finally convinced there was a link between cigarette smoking and death by lung cancer. Now Andrew Brown, the director-

general of the Advertising Association, tells MPs that his members oppose a ban on advertising to children. He claimed that in Sweden, where ads aimed at children are banned on television, the quality of children's televisionhad been diminished as a result. And he had the bare-faced cheek to suggest that the Swedish government had "been bullied by pressure groups".

According to Mr Brown, by the age of five, children can distinguish between advertising and programming, and that banning ads during children's programmes would fail because the same products would simply be advertised in slots during popular soaps such as Coronation Street. As a former television executive I can categorically tell you that many adults - not to mention five-year-olds - have considerable difficulty in separating programming from advertising. And these days, when there are sponsored programmes on ITV, with branding in the opening and closing credits - as well as hugely expensive glossy promotional trailers on the BBC shot with all the techniques, not to mention the cele-brities, used to promote beer or washing powder - the distinction between advertising and programming is more blurred than ever.

The selling power of Beckham and Lineker is undeniable, and sales of Walkers crisps boomed after Lineker was recruited. Now we face the shocking reality that one in 10 of our six-year-olds is obese, rising to one in five of 15- year-olds. Walkers and Pepsi claim that their products are perfectly acceptable as part of a balanced, healthy diet. There's the problem: when it comes to educating children and promoting a decent diet, there is no such thing as a level playing field.

It's all very well for Lineker to point to exercise as the key to fighting flab, but I disagree. As a nation we are obsessed with cheap food and snacks. No, families do not eat together around a table. They open the refrigerator door and graze. Stand in any supermarket queue and you can see how the concept of a balanced diet as espoused by the likes of Gary is a laughable fantasy. Trolley after trolley is piled high with expensive, nutritionally light garbage, from taco chips to Twiglets, crisps to confectionery bars, and colas to sugary desserts.

It's too late to talk about healthy eating, because the vast mass of people in Britain are simply not interested. They are buying products to shut their children up, stop them whingeing and satisfy their craving for sugar and crap. Consequently we are harming our children by pandering to the snack and junk food culture, taking years off their lives and condemning them to a middle age stricken with heart disease. A conference last week revealed that 11- to 13-year-old children weigh a stone more - a 10 per cent increase - than they did a generation ago, and one in four women are now clinically obese.

Gary and David are multi-millionaires. And if they care for all children, then they would stop promoting crap and start thinking about how they can support ordinary parents in improving the health of their children. Not every mum or dad is prepared to wage this battle alone. They need help, and the sooner our sporting stars start to put something back into Britain, the better. And I expect the Government to ban junk food advertising before the 9pm watershed without delay. By the end of the current decade obesity will be costing us £3.6bn a year. The sooner we tax unhealthy food, just like we do with cigarettes and alcohol, the better.

Potter's return

The cinematic remake of Dennis Potter's classic television series The Singing Detective has been panned by the critics. Starring Robert Downey Jr, produced by Mel Gibson and directed by American Keith Gordon, I could have predicted that Potter's old producer and keeper of the holy myth, Kenith Trodd, couldn't wait to pop up on the Today programme and robustly denounce the whole enterprise. At the screening I was thrilled to see Mr Downey in the flesh; like a true star, he doesn't disappoint. And how many of the paying audience will remember Michael Gambon's performance as the tortured thriller writer? Cinema audiences are younger than those that the original series was aimed at.

Personally I think the movie could have been shorter, but Downey is never less than spectacular and the lecherous behaviour of a man in his late 30s is a lot easier to stomach than in the original, which made me feel quite queasy.

The Paris Lido, the most spectacular cabaret show outside Las Vegas, is reopening in December with a brand new production. Most of the dancers, although Miss Bluebell has long departed, are still English; this is one area of expertise that even the French admit we excel in.

The owner confided to me that he is opening a small cabaret club in Paris near the Opéra in the new year. Holding only 120 people, it will be an intimate affair. The club's female star has had a fascinating past: once she was a he. Perhaps it's time for Baz Luhrmann to update Moulin Rouge.