The children's minister visited Llandough Hospital to learn more about an award-winning scheme encouraging daily physical activity.
The award-winning QuickChange cartoon, developed by a team of podiatrists, aims to help youngsters' healthy development of their foot strength and posture with a series of interactive exercises.
It's already been trialled successfully in several primary schools across Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan, with teachers noticing improved mood and energy among pupils.
A new version of the animation has been created especially for pre-school children and is already in use in a number of nurseries throughout the region.
Stephen Coombs, a podiatrist who helped to create the video in 2019, said he was inspired to act when he noticed that children attending his clinics were becoming less fit, more overweight and had poorer stability.
"Childhood obesity is becoming more common in Wales and without intervention, will result in an increase in the prevalence of a wide range of chronic conditions in adulthood such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and musculoskeletal conditions", he said.
"We hope QuickChange can be a useful aid, encouraging more physical activity to help improve foot and ankle strength as well as balance among school and pre-school children."
Dawn Bowden, who is also the minister for social care, visited the children's centre at Llandough Hospital last month for the tour of the facilities before she was shown the QuickChange animation.
Stephen added: "Foot pain is the most common musculoskeletal issue in children aged 10 to 13, and one in four children experience musculoskeletal pain."
"As paediatric podiatrists, we often commonly see children with growing pains, walking difficulties and sports-related overuse pain.""
"But we also treat children with more complex health issues like childhood arthritis, prematurity, or neurodevelopmental challenges - all of which can make them less active than others their age."
"The trouble is that foot problems can start in childhood and persist into adulthood. That’s why early intervention and detection is so important, so we aim to prevent this from happening.”
The pre-school version of QuickChange was launched in March this year, in collaboration with the local public health team at the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board.
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