A leading charity is today accusing the Government of shying away from tough targets it had set itself on combating childhood obesity, in favour of “softer, more distant” goals.

The British Heart Foundation accused ministers of “moving the goalposts” on childhood obesity after Dawn Primarolo, the Public Health Minister, said that the aim was to reduce the proportion of overweight and obese children to 2000 levels by 2020. That target, which came as research suggested that, on current trends, a quarter of all British children would be clinically obese by 2050, replaces a pledge to halve the rates by 2010.

Peter Hollins, chief executive of the heart charity, said: “We don’t want to just aim to make inroads by 2020, as the Government suggests, but to see changes by 2010 as they originally promised. We would like to ask the Government why it has so dramatically failed to make progress towards its original target, to the extent that it feels compelled to move the goalposts in this way.

“The Prime Minister needs to be braver than his predecessor and show the country he has the bottle to rein in the pervasive influence of the food industry over our children’s eating habits.”

According to the foundation, which called on the Government to clarify its position, the change in the health target was “hidden among the rhetoric” of last week’s Comprehensive Spending Review.

The Department of Health said that the Government was not reneging on its commitment.

The call came as a report from the Government’s Foresight think-tank said that current trends indicated that by 2050 half the country’s women and 60 per cent of men would be clinically obese. The report, Tackling Obesities: Future Choices, said that only 10 per cent of men and 15 per cent of women were expected to have a “healthy” weight, and that humans were not adapted to modern cheap high-energy foods and labour-saving devices.

The consequent chronic health problems were predicted to cost Britain more than £45 billion a year.