Child soldier's tale illustrates Mali's dirty war

Child soldier's tale illustrates Mali's dirty war — The boy sits with his knees tucked under his chest on the concrete floor of the police station here, his adolescent face a tableau of fear. He's still garbed in the knee-length tunic he was ordered to wear by the Islamic extremist who recruited him.

It's these same clothes, styled after those worn by the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century, which gave him away when he tried to flee earlier this week. They have now become his prison garb.

Adama Drabo is 16, and his recruitment into the ranks of a group designated as a terrorist organization, followed by his violent interrogation at the hands of the Malian army, underscores the obstacles faced by France as it tries to wash its former West African colony clean of the al-Qaida-linked fighters occupying it.

Associated Press/Jerome Delay - Adama Drabo, 16, stands in the police station in Sevare, some 620 kilometers (385 miles) north of Mali's capital Bamako, Friday, Jan. 25, 2013. Drabo, who said he was captured traveling without papers by Malian troops and eventually handed over to Gendarmes in Sevare, was arrested on suspicion of working for Islamic militant group MUJAO and caught trying to flee south, police said. A farmer's son from Niono, he admitted to having worked in the kitchens of a jihadist training base in Douentza for the past month. Drabo said his only motivation in joining the Islamic militant group had been to earn a wage, having struggled to find work at home, and that he was one of the youngest recruits on the base. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay) 

"In terms of the rules of engagement, you have to think to yourself, what will you do if a child comes up to you wearing an explosive vest? What do you do if a 12-year-old is manning a checkpoint?" says Rudolph Atallah, former director of counterterrorism for Africa at the Pentagon during the Bush administration. "It's a very difficult situation."

France, which now has around 2,500 troops on the ground, plunged headfirst into the conflict in Mali two weeks ago, after the Islamist groups that have controlled the nation's northern half since last year began an aggressive push southward. The French soldiers are equipped with night vision goggles, anti-tank mines and laser-guided bombs. However, their enemy includes the hundreds of children, some as young as 11, who have been conscripted into the rebel army.

Among those the French will have to fight are boys like Adama, the uneducated, eldest child of a poor family of rice growers, who until recently spent his days plowing fields with oxen near the village of N'Denbougou. Living just 15 miles (25 kilometers) from the central Malian town of Niono, which has become one of the frontlines in the recent war, Adama fits the profile of the types of children the Islamists have successfully recruited. His village has a single mosque, and unlike the moderate form of Islam practiced in much of Mali, the one he and his family attended preached Wahabism.

"We have observed a pattern of recruitment of child soldiers from villages that for many years have practiced a very strict form of Islam, referred to as Wahabism," says Corinne Dufka, senior researcher for West Africa at Human Rights Watch. "We estimate that hundreds of children have been recruited."

The groups allied with al-Qaida started recruiting children soon after they seized control of northern Mali last April. Rebel leaders quoted verses from the Quran which they claim describe children as the purest apprentices. Since then witnesses have described seeing children staffing checkpoints, riding in patrol vehicles, carrying out searches of cars stopped at roadblocks, as well as preparing tea and cooking food for the fighters in the towns controlled by the insurgents, says Dufka.

The United Nations children's agency said late last year that it had been able to corroborate at least 175 reported cases of child soldiers in northern Mali, bought from their impoverished parents for between $1,000 and $1,200 per child. Malian human rights officials put the total number of children recruited by the Islamists considerably higher at 1,000 — and that was before the French intervention.

Adama, who is now being held at the Sevare gendarmerie, was hired as a cook two weeks ago by Islamist fighters in Douentza, a city controlled by the Movement for Oneness and Jihad, or MUJAO. Its members have been linked to the recent terrorist attack on a natural gas plant in Algeria, which ended in the death of at least 37 hostages, according to the Algerian government.

The teenager claims he didn't know he was working for a terrorist group, even though the insurgents who ate the macaroni he cooked carried guns, wore beards and dressed in the unfamiliar Gulf-style clothes they gave him. He says he joined them only for the money they promised they would pay at the end of each month. The police holding him say he was promised around $200 a month, several times the average monthly salary here.

Adama explains that his friends in Niono said they knew people in Sevare who would give them work. So they took a Peugeot 207 taxi to reach the town.

"It was there in the town that we met some people and they hired us to cook for them," he says. "They said that at the end of each month we would get paid. ... And so we started cooking for them."

He says that even though some of the fighters in their entourage went to fight in the Niono area, he was unaware of their battle plans. The men spoke Arabic and Tamashek, a Tuareg language, which he did not understand.

One day, when he went to the corner store, the shop owner told him a war was on, he says.

"I told my friend, 'Even if the month isn't over yet, we need to get out of here.' We walked to the next village, where we found an old man there, and we asked him if he could please give us some water? The old man said he couldn't give us any water, because we're rebels. We said, 'We're not rebels. Give us some water.' It was then that a man on a motorcycle came by. The motorcyclist said that we are wearing the clothes of the Islamic fighters."

The boys tried to run.

The friend got away. Adama was handed over to the Malian military, which in recent days has been accused of executing dozens of suspected Islamists, including a group of six men who arrived in Sevare without identity cards. Adama may have been saved by the international outcry that followed the reported executions this week, says Atallah, putting immense diplomatic pressure on Mali's ill-trained and often incompetent army to respect human rights conventions.

"I was frightened," says Adama. "They said they were going to kill me. ... They said this several times."

During the interrogation, especially on the first day, the soldiers threatened to execute Adama if he did not tell the truth, he says. They hit him, he says, and slapped him across his face. It was only on Friday, according to Adama, that the soldiers told him they would not kill him.

"For four days, they kept me in jail with two big people," he says. "I feel somewhat reassured now, but not totally reassured. Because I am still not free."

Child soldiers have been part of the fabric of African conflicts for decades now. In Liberia's civil war more than 10 years ago, drugged 12- and 13-year-olds were famously photographed toting automatic weapons and teddy bears. However, the standoff this time is between a Western army bound by the Geneva Convention and Western values on human rights, and an enemy that includes hundreds of children. One of the most active groups in northern Mali is al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, the terror network's affiliate in Africa, which originated in Algeria. In 2008, the group released a video showing a cheerful 15-year-old in Algeria who was suffering from a terminal illness, Atallah says. The Islamists convinced the boy that the best thing he could do with what remained of his life was to die for Allah, according to Atallah, who saw the recording.

"The video shows him smiling," he says. "They taught him how to drive a van. And then they filmed the van as it left, just before he detonated himself. I wouldn't put it past them to do this again." ( Associated Press )

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The Freakonomics Economist Discovered the Right Way to Bribe Students

The Freakonomics Economist Discovered the Right Way to Bribe Students - A brand new study by Steven D. Levitt (of Freakonomics fame), John A. List, Susanne Neckermann, and Sally Sadoff finds that Chicago students in low-performing schools did better on tests when they were promised money or trophies for their good grades. But it wasn't as simple as writing a bunch of checks and and waiting for the A's to pour in. How much money and how you present the rewards makes all the differences.

Without instant money and rewards, many students in these Chicago schools had put forth "low effort on the standardized tests that we study," the authors write. Why didn't the students care about good grades? A light thought experiment might help you understand.

Let's imagine a man bursts through your nearest door in five seconds and says: "Quick, do 20 push-ups and I'll send you a check for $20." Do you wonder how long it takes for the money to arrive?

Classical economics would suggest you shouldn't. All things equal, $20 today is worth $20 in a week or so. But in fact, we're much more likely to do things -- large and small, easy and difficult -- when we can see the immediate benefits. If I hold a $20 bill in front your face, you're more likely to finish a push-up set than if I promise you'll get the money in a month.

Behavioral economists call this sort of thing "hyperbolic discounting," an ungainly phrase that's more commonly known as the problem of delayed gratification, or procrastination, or inattention. The theory says that we don't value rewards properly. We excessively (or hyperbolically) low-ball (or discount) the value of rewards in the distant future, which means we put too much weight on short-term satisfaction.

Now back to the tests. When an adult tells a child "stay in school," he can point to his big salary and home as evidence that education pays off. But education doesn't literally pay off for a very long time. Its rewards are delayed; therefore, from the perspective of a student, they are easily ignored. The economic rationale for paying students for good grades isn't (just) bribery. It's also about bringing the reward of good grades closer to the event of the test, when the student is more likely to act on it -- and less likely to "discount" it.

In this study, economists offered students of different ages money or trophies just before they took a test. Sometimes, the students got the reward first with the possibility that it could be revoked for bad performance. Sometimes, the students were only shown the reward after. So what did the economists find? Four really cool things.

First, they found that money works, and the amount of money really matters. Students were reportedly willing to exert significantly more energy at $80-an-hour, but not at $40-an-hour. (Authors: "As far as we know, ours is the first study to demonstrate that student responsiveness to incentives is sensitive to the size of the reward."). Second, they learned that the rewards were most powerful when they were framed as losses (i.e.: "Here is $20. If you fail, I'm taking it away."). Third, they learned that "non-financial incentives," like trophies, worked best with young people. Fourth, they learned that rewards provided with a delay -- we'll get you that check in a month -- did very little to improve performance. The power of hyperbolic discounting is strong with these ones.

***

We don't always think of our attention as a budget, but it is. When we pay attention, we pay, literally. We allocate time out of a relatively finite portfolio of focus to concentrate on something.

The trouble for many schools is that the incentive structure is set up to ask teachers to focus more than their students on standardized tests. These tests are super-high-stakes for instructors and principals, where they can determine who keeps a job and where state resources are spent. But they are relatively low-stakes for individual students in the short-term, especially if those students aren't looking to go to college and don't care very much about a weak grade. This paper's clever conclusion is that we can manipulate lessons from economics and psychology to trick/bribe/nudge students toward spending more from their attention budget.

We talk about the "attention economy" as if it's confined to the word of social media and advertising. But in fact, it's here, in under-served school districts, where the lessons of attention might be the most lucrative for the country. If we can buy their attention today, we'll all be richer for it. ( The Atlantic )

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Children in one in four homes share bedrooms

Children in one in four homes share bedrooms - Thousands of children are forced to share a bedroom with a sibling or other family member, according to new research.

In London, this figure rises to 35 per cent of households. Among young couples in Britain, the proportion is 38 per cent.

Nearly one in three parents think their home is too small, according to the study of 2,000 adults by property website FindaProperty.com.

Research also found that of the million people in Britain who are expecting to become a parent within the next few months, 14 per cent think their home is too small for the child.

Thousands of children are forced to share a bedroom with a sibling or other family member, according to new research

The study also found that nearly a million people in the UK are expecting to become a parent within the next few months, and roughly 14 per cent of these are still living in homes that are too small to accommodate their new arrival.

Samantha Baden, a property analyst at FindaProperty, said: "With the average cost of a three bedroom home in the UK now in the region of £193,000, affordability remains a key issue for families.

"Very few families can afford to buy or rent a property that meets their exact size and location requirements, and as a result, they are often forced to compromise on one or the other.

"These findings reinforce the importance of investing quality time in the search for a home that meets the needs of the family both now and in the future." ( telegraph.co.uk )

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Younger Kids Respond Better to 'Lazy Eye' Treatment

Younger Kids Respond Better to 'Lazy Eye' Treatment -- Younger children respond better to treatment for lazy eye (amblyopia) than older children, according to an analysis of previous studies.

The meta-analysis of data from 996 children who took part in four clinical trials conducted by the Pediatric Eye Disease Investigator Group found that children ages 3 to 7 years old responded better to treatment for both moderate and severe amblyopia than those aged 7 to less than 13.

There were no differences in treatment response between children aged 3 to less than 5 and those aged 5 to less than 7 with moderate amblyopia. However, children aged 3 to less than 5 with severe amblyopia had a greater treatment response than those aged 5 to less than 7.

Despite the lower treatment response in older children, they still showed improvements in vision acuity (clarity) and some achieved significant benefits, the researchers said.

"In conclusion, while there is improvement in visual acuity across all age ranges [from 3 to under 13], children 7 to less than 13 years of age are least responsive to amblyopia treatment," wrote review author Jonathon M. Holmes, of the Mayo Clinic in Rocheseter, Minn., and colleagues. "Despite reduced mean [average] treatment response in children 7 to less than 13 years of age, some children in this age group showed marked improvement with treatment."

The study appears online July 11 in the Archives of Ophthalmology.

In related news, a research letter published in the same issue of the journal concluded that an intensive final treatment effort (using eye patches and atropine) does not appear to improve visual acuity in children who still have mild amblyopia after initial treatment. (HealthDay News)

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Should we be worried about early puberty?

Should we be worried about early puberty? - Why are girls now regularly starting puberty aged eight and nine? And how easy is it to cope at primary school? Joanna Moorhead reports

Hannah only turned eight a couple of months ago – but she has already started puberty. Her mother, Liz, is shocked. "Over the last few weeks her nipples have suddenly become swollen. They're really painful for her – she finds it hard to put on a T-shirt or to hug people. We went to the doctor and he said it was hormonal changes linked to the onset of puberty. I was horrified. Hannah's a skinny little thing and I hadn't anticipated puberty for at least three more years."

The impact of early puberty on body image and self-esteem can be significant. Photograph: Bubbles Photolibrary / Alamy/Alamy

Yet puberty is arriving earlier and earlier. Last week it was reported boys' choirs were finding it hard to maintain their standards because they now lose experienced choristers much earlier – trebles who used to sing until the age of 15 or 16 are now having to stop at 12 or 13, because their voices are breaking.

Peter Hindmarsh, professor of paediatric endocrinology at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, says it's harder to collect data on male puberty, and that reports of puberty starting earlier in boys are anecdotal. But for girls, the evidence is conclusive. "Between 1958 and 2005, breast development – the sign that puberty is starting in girls – moved about nine months ahead of where it used to be," he says. "Interestingly, though, the age at menarche (first period) hasn't moved much – from about 13 to about 12.8."

The average age for the onset of puberty is 10.75 years in girls, and 11.5 years in boys (the first sign for boys is an increase in testicular size). But more children than ever are being referred to specialists after their parents take them to their GPs with worries about the psychological and physical fallout of being ahead of their peer group.

The usually cited reason for the change is the increase in childhood body weight. Better nutrition lowers the age of puberty, partly because the hormone changes that initiate it are triggered by a child's body reaching a certain size. Now that an increasing number of children are overweight or obese, it's likely that this too is playing its part. "It is very likely that there is a link with increasing body weight, but the data is only just beginning to show that," says Hindmarsh. "It makes sense, though. In a time of plenty, a species which always has a strong vested interest in self-preservation tends to reproduce quickly."

One recent piece of research in the Journal of Adolescent Health, for example, found that girls whose biological father didn't live with them were more likely to start breast development sooner. It is not clear why – but some scientists have speculated that it might be to do with unrelated males such as a mother's boyfriend giving off pheromones that affect girls' biological clocks; or it might be the absence of a father sending a "danger – shortage of men" signal to the pre-pubescent girl's brain, triggering the hormone changes that will enable her to reproduce.

As Hindmarsh explains, "The age of sexual maturation is highly adaptable. The drive to continue the species is so strong that we have evolved a system that is extremely sensitive to change. If there's even a hint of change, or circumstances that might threaten the drive to procreate, then the hormone system is designed to adapt to that to create the circumstances most likely to result in offspring."

Other studies have found link-ups that, like the absent father finding, seem totally baffling. For example, an Australian study found that the more older brothers a girl has, the later she hits puberty. Another piece of research found a link between exposure to artificial light and TV screens and early puberty, and another connected early puberty to weak maternal bonding.

So, where our primeval evolutionary instincts meet the complexities of 21st-century living, puberty seems sometimes to be triggered early. Yet while we don't fully understand the mechanisms that are put into play, we are aware of the immense difficulties early puberty can cause. "For the children themselves, the big problem is that they stand out from their peers," says Hindmarsh. Because they are taller than their classmates, he says, "they may have difficulties fitting into the classroom furniture, and primary schools aren't always prepared for girls who are having periods."

"It's confusing, too, because the surge of female sex hormones come at a time when their brain isn't ready for it. Children at that age are normally still in a stage of childhood where they are into fantasy play, and the brain changes that are triggered by puberty are all about reality, and understanding that actions have long-term consequences. It's all very confusing for young children, and, in my experience, they often react by becoming withdrawn. Parents worry that they'll become precocious, but I don't see as much of that."

Dr Anna Symonds, a Midlands-based clinical psychologist, says that while it's tough enough for young girls to handle the mood swings and PMT that come with puberty, handling these while still at primary school and before their friends go through something similar, is even more difficult. "The impact on body image, and self-esteem, can also be significant," she says. "Children in this situation tend to be a lot bigger than the other children around them, so everyone is well aware that something is different. Things like gym lessons, and having to wear a bra before your classmates, make children very self-conscious."

Tam Fry of the Child Growth Foundation says his organisation fields far more calls from parents who are worried about premature puberty than it did five or 10 years ago. "Parents are very concerned, and it's easy to see why," he says. "We've all heard about supermarkets being hauled over the coals for selling push-up bras for eight-year-olds . . . and the fact that more eight-year-olds need bras is only going to make the problem worse.

"But it's not just a psychological and social problem; there are growth problems, too. The irony is that a girl who goes through puberty early will be a lot taller than her peers initially – but as an adult, she'll actually be shorter. That's because a girl's first period is a signal to the brain to slow growth down – so after this stage she might grow another two or three centimetres, but that will be it.

"So a girl who starts her periods early, even though she may seem tall at the time, will invariably go on to be short as an adult."

For Hannah's mother Liz, this is adding insult to injury. "The whole thing seems so unfair," she says. "Childhood goes so quickly anyway, and now Hannah is on the path to being grown up. I worry that growing breasts, and maybe starting her periods, before her friends will make her self-conscious."

Unfortunately, too, the story of early puberty isn't over once that life stage is completed: there's an increasing amount of research linking early puberty to a higher chance of getting breast cancer in later life – and there could be a higher risk of ovarian cancer and heart disease, too. It's not, on any reading of the situation, good news for today's little girls. ( guardian.co.uk )

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Real Couple Gripes And Likes

Real Couple Gripes & Likes: The Gripes.

Looking for Cheers"

My husband thinks he's so handy. I'll never forget one time when he mowed the lawn and left our beautiful, plush grass looking like Stevie Wonder had cut it. As if that wasn't bad enough, he wanted to be appreciated for all his hard work. And he was serious!" -- Robin

[Nest Tip] Praise his work or you'll never get him to mow the lawn again!

Breaking the Code

"My husband and I haven’t gotten into a good routine yet for going through our mail. So it builds up, and then he’ll say, ‘We really need to go through the mail.' What this really translates to is: ‘You really need to go through the mail.' He does this 'we' thing with other stuff like doing the dishes, laundry, etc. But 'we' only includes me!" -- Susan

[Nest Tip] Make a joke out of the situation so that your point is clear but doesn't start a crazy fight. Try saying something like, “How come ‘we’ ends up being me? I'm onto your system. But I'll do the mail if you do the dishes -- and then we'll really get something done." Then fill out a chore chart and make sure the mail gets assigned to one of you.

Leaving a Trail

"My wife's most annoying habit is that she's a picker -- she picks her nails, her nail polish, her cuticles. I'm always finding her polish chips on the bottom of the passenger seat of our car." -- Eric

[Nest Tip] Hold her hand every time you catch her picking. Or invest in a Dustbuster.

Blabber Mouth

"My husband can't keep a secret to save his life. He has no sense of holding some things back. For instance, I shared something personal and private about a friend with him, and, naturally, the next time we see her, he blurts it out right in front of her. He'll say, 'Yeah, my wife told me that.' I don't know if he forgets, isn't listening, or just doesn't care." -- Marjorie

[Nest Tip] If you're going to keep sharing, then make a mental note to remind him what he can’t say when you meet up with friends.

Patiently Waiting

"My husband is a huge procrastinator. He's been saying that he's going to clean out the garage since we moved into our house -- and that was more than a year ago! I admit that he's cleaned up some of it, but at this rate, it won’t be completely done until we move again." -- Carol

[Nest Tip] Go over your calendars together and schedule all to-dos -- yours and his. And make sure he knows you'll keep him company while he cleans. You might even lend a hand or two.

Backseat Viewer

"My wife watches TV shows that drive her crazy. She spends the whole hour critiquing everything, from the writing to the camera work, the acting, and even the actors' personal lives. And she wants me to care and be incensed too. I don’t get why she doesn’t just change the channel." -- David

[Nest Tip] Change the channel for her. Or turn off the TV.

Glass Is Half-empty

"My husband clips his fingernails and toenails on the couch and puts the waste in whatever empty cup he was drinking from. It makes getting refills a very dangerous activity!" -- Leah

[Nest Tip] Watch -- and wash -- all drinking devices!

( thenest.com )

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One in 10 children in England 'will be obese within five years'

One in 10 children in England 'will be obese within five years' . An estimated one in 10 children in England will be obese within five years, experts have predicted.

The rise is likely to be most dramatic in youngsters from poorer families, they warn.

Obesity can lead to serious health problems, including diabetes and certain forms of cancer, and reduce lifespan.

Experts have warned that today's obese children could live shorter lives than their parents because their weight is storing up illnesses for the future.

The new figures were released just a week after statistics suggested that the proportion of children becoming obese and overweight was levelling off.

But researchers from UCL say in their research that that trend is apparent only among more affluent children.

They found that in 2007 around seven per cent of children in England were obese.

If trends continue the experts estimate that by 2015 that figure will be 10 per cent, an almost 50 per cent rise.

The Government-sponsored Foresight report predicts that by 2050 up to half of adults and one quarter of children could be obese.

The researchers warn that health messages, such as the need to eat five pieces of fruit and vegetables a day or for children to take regular exercise, are harder to get across to poorer families.

They looked at obesity trends among two to 18-year-olds between 1995 and 2007.

“If trends continue as they have been between 1995 and 2007 in 2015 the number and prevalence of obese young people is projected to increase dramatically, and these increases will affect lower social classes to a larger extent,” say the authors of the report, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Last week figures showed that one in four children are now overweight or obese when they start school.

Obesity is calculated using the Body Mass Index (BMI), a ratio of weight in comparison to height.

A BMI score is calculated by dividing a person’s weight in kilograms by their height in metres squared.

A score of between 18 and 25 is considered normal, while 25 to 30 is overweight, 30 to 40 obese and over 40 morbidly obese. ( telegraph.co.u )

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Children eat four times the recommended calories on Christmas Day

Children eat four times the recommended calories on Christmas Day. Children can consume nearly four times their daily recommended amount of calories on Christmas Day alone, research has shown.

Childhood obesity experts at Leeds-based Carnegie Weight Management found that Christmas dinner, treats and other meals contained up to 6,000 calories - nearly four times what a five-year-old should eat in one day.

They warned that the weight gained by children over the festive season may take weeks or months to lose - with some never shifting the extra pounds.

Children can consume four times their recommended daily intake of calories at Christmas
Photo: GETTY

The study by the weight management programme, based at Leeds Metropolitan University, found that an average Christmas dinner can contain 956 calories and 48g of fat, while assorted desserts and treats add another 3,336 calories and 169.7g of fat.

Added to breakfast and any other extra meals or snacks and children are soon eating far more than is recommended in one day.

The 6,000-calorie total is around four times the 1,550-calorie limit recommended for a girl aged between four and six and is even more than twice the 2,775 daily allowance for teenage boys aged 15 to 18 years old.

Adults are also in danger of over-indulging, with daily recommended limits of 2,550 calories for men and 1,940 for women.

Carnegie Weight Management is now warning parents to recognise the dangers of such over-eating after a further study found that many wrongly think their children will grow out of obesity.

The research found that more than 40% of parents are not recognising weight problems in their offspring - with 16% blaming it on puppy fat, 14% claiming it is genetic and 11% thinking it is down to low metabolism.

The statistics have prompted experts at Carnegie, the longest-running programme for the treatment of overweight and obese children in Europe, to warn parents that not recognising weight problems in their children can lead to obesity levels continuing.

Paul Gately, director of Carnegie Weight Management, said: ''Puppy fat is no longer relevant to our children; they just don't grow out of it any more. In fact, half of overweight five-year- olds will grow up to be obese adults.

''I urge parents to seek advice early in order to understand the classifications of overweight and obesity and access services.''

Christmas Day calorie totals:

CHRISTMAS DINNER:

• :: Roast turkey (90g) - 149 calories
• :: Roast potatoes (85g) - 127 calories
• :: Stuffing (100g) - 231 calories
• :: Bread sauce (45g) - 42 calories
• :: Roast parsnips (90g) - 102 calories
• :: Boiled carrots - 14 calories
• :: Boiled Brussels sprouts - 32 calories
• :: Gravy (50g) - 17 calories
• :: Cranberry sauce (30g) - 45 calories
• :: Pork sausage (20g) - 62 calories
• :: Bacon (40g) - 135 calories

TOTAL: 956 calories

EXTRAS:

• :: 1 slice of Christmas cake (70g) - 249 calories
• :: 1 portion of chocolate log (30g) - 101 calories
• :: 1 portion of cheese and biscuits - 394 calories
• :: 1 portion of mixed nuts (40g) - 243 calories
• :: 1 portion Christmas pudding (100g), custard and brandy butter - 587 calories
• :: 1 mince pie and double cream - 368 calories
• :: 3 Quality Streets - 133 calories
• :: 5 Chocolate Fingers - 150 calories
• :: Average Selection Box - 1,111 calories

TOTAL: 3,336 calories

OTHER MEALS AND SNACKS:

TOTAL: 1,708 calories

Recommended calories per day:

• :: Age 4 to 6: 1,700 (male), 1,550 (female)
• :: Age 7 to 10: 1,970 (male), 1,845 (female)
• :: Age 11 to 14: 2,220 (male), 1,845 (female)
• :: Age 15 to 18: 2,775 (male), 2,110 (female)
• :: Adults: 2,550 (male), 1,940 (female)

( telegraph.co.uk )

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British children’s fitness levels 'falling twice as fast as international average'

British children’s fitness levels 'falling twice as fast as international average'. The fitness levels of British children are falling twice as fast as the global average despite the Government spending more than £1.5 billion to encourage them to become more active, a new study shows.

Youngsters in Britain today are significantly less fit than they were a decade ago – with their increasingly sedentary lifestyles to blame, according to the research.

Children’s fitness in the UK has declined by eight per cent, compared to an average of only four per cent for the rest of the world.

The researchers described the fall as "large and worrying" and warned that the Government’s focus on children’s weight could have led to serious fitness problems being overlooked.

Their study – published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood journal – will fuel concerns about the selling-off of school playing fields under Labour and the health consequences for the so-called "PlayStation generation".

Critics accused the Government of presiding over the decline of school sports and said the recent investment of billions of pounds to encourage them to become more active was clearly not working.

Fewer than one in three children now play competitive sport and activities like yoga and circus skills are increasingly taking over school PE lessons, official figures show.

Around 2,000 school playing fields have also been sold off since Labour came to power in 1997, with another 15 estimated to be lost every month.

The latest study found British boys were nine per cent less fit than they were 10 years ago – with girls’ fitness having declined by seven per cent.

The researchers used ‘shuttle runs’ to test the children’s cardiovascular fitness – usually defined as how efficiently the heart, lungs and other parts of the body deliver oxygen to muscle tissue to aid endurance and prolong physical activity.

They tested 300 10-year-old schoolchildren in 1998 and another 300 in 2008 – and said even slim children were significantly less fit.

They also warned that falling activity levels could be even worse for children’s health than being heavily overweight and said schools should monitor not just size and weight, but fitness.

Dr Gavin Sandercock, from the Centre for Sports and Exercise Science at the University of Essex, who carried out the research in an affluent area in Chelmsford, said "less active" lifestyles were to blame for the decline.

"Children are not doing as much physical activities as before. They are using their spare time to play more computer games, more time watching TV, or more time online.

"They don’t climb trees any more, they don’t use their bikes any more.

"I read last week that Britain is highly up-to-date with technology, with more computers-per-household than anywhere else in Europe – but that means our kids are playing more computers. The drop in fitness is very, very large."

He added that recent studies suggested children could be spending up to one quarter of their waking lives in front of a television or computer screen.

In 1998, no national strategy was in place for school sports, with schools left to decide how much exercise to provide.

However, since 2002 the Government has spent more than more than £1.5 billion on schemes to encourage sports in schools.

They have also invested £75 million in the flagship Change For Life programme designed to encourage healthier, more active lifestyles, which is particularly targeted at children. But opposition politicians said the money had clearly failed to address the problems.

Mike Penning, the shadow health minister, said: "While many are rightly concerned about the future health of the nation as measured by levels of childhood obesity, this is not the only indicator of children’s health.

"These figures confirm that children’s fitness is falling at an alarming rate – reflecting the Government’s continued failure to support families in maintaining healthy, active lifestyles through regular exercise."

Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, added: "It is hopeless to just focus on children’s weight.

"Fitness is incredibly important for all sorts of medical conditions and even children’s mental health.

"There needs to be a much stronger commitment to get youngsters more active, including in schools in PE and games lessons.

"Ministers should make a commitment to ensure that the legacy of the Olympics will be managing to reverse this disturbing trend."

Youngsters are now weighed once a year in school and figures show that one in five children is obese or overweight when they start primary school, rising to one in three by the age of 11.

Today’s study warns however, that fitness may be more important than weight to children’s overall health as being fit can reduce the health risks associated with obesity.

The Government has said that by 2011, all five to 16-year-olds will be offered five hours of sport a week in schools. Those aged 16 to 19 will be offered three hours.

A spokesman for the Department of Heath said last night: "Tackling childhood obesity and promoting physical activity is a priority for the Government.

"If we are going to turn the tide on obesity for good, our children need to be active for 60 minutes a day – including what they already do at school." ( telegraph.co.uk )

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