According to IC Wales, Toystore owners in Wales are being inundated with requests from parents to find alternatives to Easter eggs this Easter. It follows a trend of health food campaigners preaching that our children are becoming too fat and are eating the wrong foods.

Some purists may feel that giving children toys at Easter may give them the wrong message, and that Easter has just become another commercial holiday, just as Christmas has become. However the fact remains that reducing the amount of chocolate that your children eat in favour of toys and activity led family days can only be good for our children’s health.

Zoe Harcombe from Newport, South Wales, is the author of the diet guide, Stop Counting Calories, Start Losing Weigh

Cheap eggs – or confectionery as I call them – are very high in sugar and contain little in the way of nutrition. Eating them leads to a massive sugar high, and unlike chocolate high in cocoa, the body doesn’t register when it has had enough, and it will crave more later.

If you’re looking for an alternative to chocolate this Easter you can find loads of toys in our online toy shop. The top toy this Easter, instead of chocolate, is expected to be Iggle Piggle, another character from the BBC, this time from the series In the Night Garden.