The culture of "TV dinners" has eroded traditional structures of family life and led some homes to dispense with a dining table entirely, the minister said, adding it was heartbreaking that the poorest in the country were among the most at risk of obesity.
"A third of our children leave primary school overweight or obese," she said.
"When I was at school, you could tell the demography of children by how thin they were. You could see by looking at their eyes."
