Rickets making comeback among Britain's young computer generation, experts warn

They said young people were spending more time indoors on their computers rather than previous generations who spent time playing outside with their friends.

Two medical experts have called for vitamin D to be added to milk and other food products.

They said modern diets often lacked vitamin D and this could be a big reason – along with changing lifestyles – for the increasing health problems, in particular rickets in children.

Writing a clinical review in the latest issue of the British Medical Journal, Prof Simon Pearce and Dr Tim Cheetham of Newcastle University call for a change in public health policy.

Prof Pearce, a professor of endocrinology, said: "Kids tend to stay indoors more these days and play on their computers instead of enjoying the fresh air.

"This means their vitamin D levels are worse than in previous years.

"A change in public health policy is required. Health professionals have been slow to deal with this problem.

"Some measures have been taken but the number of patients still presenting with symptoms of vitamin D deficiency shows we have a long way to go."

Rickets, where children develop painful and deformed bow-legs and do not grow properly, is a condition linked with poverty, starvation, Victorian times or the developing world – not 21st century Britain.

But it is a very real concern, with several studies showing that numbers are increasing. More than 20 new cases are discovered every year in Newcastle alone.

Dr Cheetham, a senior lecturer in paediatric endocrinology, said: "I am dismayed by the increasing numbers of children we are treating with this entirely preventable condition.