Children who play with cheap toys like crates and buckets are more physically active and creative than children with expensive playground apparatus, new research found.

A group of 120 primary school children aged between five and 12 were given access to cheap simple toys like buckets, pipes, exercise mats, hay bales and foam swimming pool toys.

They were compared to children from a nearby school with an expensive playground that included monkey bars and slides.

The study, published in the journal BMC Public Health, found that children playing with cheaper toys were less likely to sit around, with sedentary behaviour falling from 61.5 per cent to 30.5 per cent.

Children playing with everyday household objects took 13 more steps per minute and played more intensively and vigorously than those in the traditional playground.

Researchers now believe that conventional playgrounds may stifle energetic and imaginative children, and that cheap toys could be one way of preventing childhood weight problems.

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