Main content

Childhood Obesity Rockets

124 million children around the world are obese and 213 million children are overweight.

Childhood and teenage obesity is spreading across the world at an alarming rate 鈥 and this week the first evidence of the extent of the crisis has been published. Experts at the World Health Organization and Imperial College, London analysed data from more than 2000 studies, involving 128 million children and adolescents worldwide. If this trend continues, there will be more overweight children than underweight in five years鈥 time.

If you saw someone with a sign on the street saying 鈥渇ree listening here鈥, would you pull up and chair, sit down and tell them all of your problems? In Oakland, California, passers-by are doing just that 鈥 thanks to the 鈥渁ctive listening鈥 of Sidewalk Talks volunteers. Those involved say it鈥檚 life-changing.

Babies aren鈥檛 born with a sense of empathy 鈥 it鈥檚 something which develops over years. But a British psychologist says he believes an experiment he鈥檚 carried out on four-month old babies shows the foundations of empathy are evident early in life. When babies were shown a video of a brush stroking someone else鈥檚 hand at the same time as their own hand was tickled 鈥 the patterns of electrical activity in the 鈥渢ouch鈥 areas of their brains were altered.

(Photo: Getty Images)

Available now

27 minutes

Last on

Sat 14 Oct 2017 23:32GMT

Broadcasts

  • Wed 11 Oct 2017 19:32GMT
  • Thu 12 Oct 2017 02:32GMT
  • Thu 12 Oct 2017 04:32GMT
  • Thu 12 Oct 2017 06:32GMT
  • Thu 12 Oct 2017 13:32GMT
  • Sat 14 Oct 2017 23:32GMT

Podcast