High school students will take part in an intense fitness challenge to get their health on track. Their hard work will be aired on television starting with a three-minute segment tonight on ZBM.

Nearly 80 students from CedarBridge Academy, The Berkeley Institute, Saltus Grammar School, Warwick Academy, Mount Saint Agnes and Bermuda High School have signed up for the National High School Fitness Challenge.

It is an extension of BF&M's 'Summer Camp Cardio', which ended in August, and aims to get students eating right and exercising. A short three-minute segment of the fitness challenge will air tonight after The Young and the Restless, around 6.57 p.m. A 30-minute show will premiere next Tuesday at 8 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer Andrew Phillips, of Global Arts Entertainment, is the key spokesperson for the fitness programme and television show.

He said: "It's a national campaign so it's really designed to introduce the students to healthy living. Of course our main goal is to teach them about good nutrition (and) good exercise.

"We do not want to have our children suffering from obesity and we have some cases where our children are trying to be skinny due to the media and don't know how to eat."

Mr. Phillips said all the school principals "were onboard" and added: "It's going to be an exciting challenge. It is nice that it's going to be televised so we can bring it to the community and they can see how fit their schools are."

Young people will be separated into two groups: one for weight loss and another for building core strength.

Participants will have to take part in three or four boot camps per week either at 5.30 a.m. or at 4 p.m. and will be weighed for body fat and tested on their strength.

They have already been weighed in and were given food journals yesterday. At the end of the six-week programme the biggest loser will win a trip to a United Nations International School Conference in New York in March.