Replace fruit juice with water, families told

Water should replace fruit juice on the breakfast table in order to combat obesity, an expert has said.

Professor Tom Sanders, from King's College London, called for sugary drinks to be taken out of children's diets and said "kids should be getting their fluid from drinking water".

"We need to reintroduce the habit of people putting a jug of water on the table and drinking water with their food instead of some sort of fruity beverage," he said at a briefing to journalists.

He was backed by fellow nutritionist Professor Susan Jebb, from Oxford University, who said: "I'd prefer to get sugar out of drinks altogether; a shift to low or no calorie drinks, and preferably water."