By EMMA MORTON, Health and Science Editor CRIPPLING bone disease rickets has made a shock comeback - because kids are staying indoors with video games instead of playing in the sunshine.
The condition - rife in gloomy 19th-century slums but wiped out in Britain in the 1930s - has been found in more than A FIFTH of children in a Southampton study.
And unlike the olden days, when it was linked with poverty, medics say it is now just as rife in middle-class youngsters.
The disease is caused by a lack of vitamin D - created when sun reacts with the skin - and causes children's bones to become soft.
Classic signs of the disease in the past include bow legs and "knock knees".
Stunned study leader Professor Nicholas Clarke said: "It is quite astonishing. This is a completely new occurrence that has evolved over the last 12 to 24 months.
"We are seeing cases across the board, from areas of deprivation up to the middle classes."
Paediatric orthopedic surgeon Professor Clarke, of Southampton General Hospital, checked more than 200 local kids for the study. He said children must be encouraged to get more sun, by cutting down on computer games and walking to and from school.
Dr Justin Davies, a consultant paediatric endocrinologist, added: "This is almost certainly a combination of the modern lifestyle, which involves a lack of exposure to sunlight, but also covering up in sunshine, and we're seeing cases that are very reminiscent of 17th-century England.
"This would have been inconceivable only a year or so ago."
Despite a handful of cases in recent years, the disease was largely wiped out in Britain in the 1930s thanks to vitamin D-packed supplements like cod liver oil.
But oily fish is eaten less now, and dairy and eggs - which also contain the "sunlight vitamin" - have also been cut down on.
The Southampton medics also say modern food such as takeaways and ready meals also have fewer nutrients than fresh food.
People need just 20 minutes exposure to natural sunlight daily to help the body to metabolise vitamin D and ward off rickets.
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By CAROL COOPER
Sun Doctor
RICKETS is due to severe vitamin D deficiency in kids, either because their skin doesn't get enough sun or their diet is poor - or a combination of the two.
Around half the UK's youngsters are said to run short of vitamin D, so it was only a matter of time before rickets reappeared.
The action of sunlight on the skin is crucial in making vitamin D but many kids don't play outside much. They need to get more sun, rather than being cooped up inside.
Low vitamin D levels also run in families, with pregnant women who go short likely to have babies deficient in it too. And people with darker skins need more sunlight.
Vitamin D does more than build healthy bones and teeth - long-term deficiency is also linked to cancer and multiple sclerosis.
Peril of the slums
ANCIENT Roman medics described the symptoms of rickets - but it really ran rife after the Industrial Revolution.
People living in slums with little natural light and poor diets caused it to flourish so much it became known as "the English disease".
Symptoms usually surfaced from the ages of one to five. As well as bow legs and knock knees, some children's bones were rendered so weak they could only move by shuffling along on their bottoms.
All that changed with vitamin D supplements like cod liver oil in the 1930s.
The disease was quickly all but extinct here, though it still plagues poorer countries.
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