Ninety-nine per cent of children can confidently use a DVD player but only 43 per cent can boil an egg, a survey has revealed.

And while 82 per cent of eight to 15-year-olds are confident using a microwave and more than two-thirds are confident cooking a ready meal, just 29 per cent are at ease with a frying pan and only 58 per cent can use a vegetable peeler, according to the British Heart Foundation The figures paint a worrying picture of a generation of technological whizz-kids who have little or no experience in the kitchen, the charity says.

As part of its Food4Thought campaign the BHF is calling on the Government to make cooking skills a compulsory part of every child's education.

And Tong School in Bradford yesterday become one of the first in the country to join the campaign when a group of Year Seven pupils got a sneak preview of the charity's innovative giant burger box', a teaching resource pack the school will be using to learn about healthy eating and cooking skills.

The pack, which will be sent to 2,500 schools across the UK, includes lesson plans and food-shaped teaching aids.

Sue Thomas, head of Year Seven at Tong School, said: "As part of the Government's National Strategy concerning Every Child Matters, we are committed as a school to make every effort, not only to educate our students about healthy lifestyles, but to provide healthy choices as a lunchtime meal."

Maura Gillespie, head of policy and public affairs at the BHF, said: "These results are deeply concerning because it demonstrates we are rearing a generation of children whose cooking skills stretch only as far as popping a fatty, processed ready-meal in the microwave.

"We are at serious risk of completely losing touch with where our food comes from and how it is made.

"This sort of knowledge is crucial to being able to make healthy choices and lead a healthy lifestyle.

"The Government has recently announced some useful new initiatives to tackle the UK's serious problems with childhood obesity and poor nutrition, but more still needs to be done, and quickly.

"We need to see a pre-watershed ban on TV junk food advertising and compulsory cooking lessons for all children."

The Food4Thought campaign is aimed at getting children, in particular 11 to 12-year-olds, thinking about what they eat and how it is produced, prepared and marketed. It includes a hard-hitting advertising campaign featuring a young girl drinking from a bottle of cooking oil with the caption What goes into crisps goes into you'.

Children, teachers and parents are being urged to visit the campaign microsite at bhf.org.uk/food to find out more.

e-mail: claire.lomax@bradford. newsquest.co.uk