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This morning's box of Coco Pops has most of its back discussing not the nutritional properties of the cereal, nor the 8 vitamins and minerals it is enriched with, but instead about encouraging children to have “60 minutes of exercise each day”. It offers “Ian's Hints and Tips”, the Ian in question being Ian Wright, who is endorsing this cereal. These tips are, as you might guess, examples of forms of exercise to be encouraged. One in particular caught my eye: “Cycling is also a fun way to get the family out together and burn off some energy — and it's environmentally friendly!”

I don't think that last bit is really true. Certainly, cycling viewed as an alternative to driving is environmentally friendly in several ways, but as an alternative to kicking a ball around your local park, it's hardly that. None of the other suggested activities is quoted as environmentally friendly, which I suppose means that Mr. Wright (or Mr. Kellogg) think that cycling is the most environmentally friendly.

Even the footballs made in sweat-shops far away are transported uninflated, not really bumping up their carbon footprint. They're made of lightweight plastics and there isn't much material in them. On the other hand, bikes are elaborate constructions of steel, aluminium, carbon fibre, or even Kevlar these days. There's much more to them than there is to a football, and the cheap sorts children tend to ride (because their parents realise that they'll grow out of them within a year) are made and assembled abroad and shipped here wholesale.

I think even the most elaborate swimming pools, sucking power for heat, light, and pumps, are no less environmentally friendly than leisure cycling, simply because this power cost is split between a large number of users.

Still, there is a simple explanation. As I said above, cycling as a form of transport is environmentally friendly, but all those other forms of exercise will almost always be bracketed by a trip by car to and from the park or the municipal baths. This much is true. But do you think the same parents who won't walk a mile or two with their children to the park or baths will instead let them cycle along busy roads to reach more favourable ground, or will they in fact just load all the bikes into the back of the car or onto its roof and burn up the highway to some trail somewhere? And if the bikes are on a rack rather than folded in the boot, they'll be burning twice as much fuel as they would be otherwise, and for an encore will probably go on to claim this as a justification for buying a people carrier.

Now, please don't misunderstand. Taking your children plus bikes to the middle of nowhere is a perfectly valid and enjoyable day out, and encouraging more cycling does have eventual environmental benefits when those same children grow up and cycle to work rather than sitting on the A14 all morning. No green warrior am I, and even if your chosen form of exercise is to run after burning tyres that's fine by me. But promoting leisure cycling as an environmentally friendly form of exercise in contrast to playing football, swimming, or taking the dog for a run is misleading, and it's a pretty silly thing for them to say.

That said, I did intend to follow up my breakfast with some environmentally friendly cycling of my own, and I've spent the whole time I've been writing this article looking out the window at the beautiful day it is outside, so I think I'll sign off now to take the cereal's advice and get my exercise.