NewsKidz

22/09/2025

A Historic Shift: Childhood Obesity Now Exceeds Underweight

September 22, 2025: For the first time in history, the United Nations children’s charity UNICEF has reported that there are now more obese children than underweight children worldwide in the 5–19 age group.

According to a recent UNICEF study, nearly 10% of children and teenagers are obese, compared with a little over 9% who are underweight. With nearly 2 billion children in this age group globally, that translates to about 200 million obese children—almost one in ten. Another 200 million are overweight but not obese, meaning that one in five school-aged children falls into the overweight or obese category. Only about 70% remain in the healthy weight range.

Obesity rates are highest in the Pacific Islands, where between 30–40% of children are obese. The problem also affects richer nations. Only in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are underweight children still more common than obese children.

The shift has been rapid. In 2000, just 3% of children were obese. Experts say the main driver is a change in diet: traditional, healthier foods are being replaced by ultra-processed products that are cheap but high in sugar, salt, unhealthy fats, and additives—harmful to children’s growth and long-term health. UNICEF has warned that obesity and overweight can lead to serious health issues later in life, including diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers. Unicef is urging countries to take strong action to protect children from unhealthy foods.

This could mean clearer food labels and stricter rules on advertising, removing junk food from school canteens, introducing taxes on unhealthy snacks and drinks, and asking food companies to change recipes to make products healthier.

Topics for 2-minute explainer

Demography of India: Children, Adults, and Senior Citizens
Types of Foods (Whole foods; Processed foods; Ultra-processed foods)
Undernutrition (Wasting, Stunting, Underweight) and Overnutrition (Overweight, Obesity)
Role of brain chemistry and neurotransmitters in food cravings
What is a calorie? Daily calorie requirements for children and adults & Calculating calorific value of foods

24/11/2019

https://newskidz.wordpress.com/2019/11/24/build-ram-temple-says-supreme-court/

15/11/2019

All about Brexit for kids. https://newskidz.wordpress.com/2019/11/15/will-uk-solve-its-border-issue/

26/10/2019

https://newskidz.wordpress.com/2019/10/26/india-does-not-have-enough-blood-banks/

Blood banks collect and store blood for medical use. They supply it to hospitals when there is a need. Usually, accident victims, and patients who undergo major surgeries, need blood. India neith…

10/10/2019

Chinese President Xi Jinping is coming to Mamallapuram to meet India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi tomorrow.

India and China are the only two countries with a population of over one billion. They both promote globalization. But they do not see each other as friends. Instead, they see each other as threats.

India and China have many disagreements. They accuse each other of occupying one another's territories. China claims that India is occupying some 90,000 square kilometers of its territory. This includes a part of Arunachal Pradesh. But, India says that China occupies 38,000 square kilometers of its territory in the Aksai Chin Plateau. The plateau lies in the western Himalayas - this includes parts of the Ladakh region.

In 1954, the two countries signed an agreement called Five Principles. These principles were conceived by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. But they fought a war in 1962 over the territorial rights. After the war, there ware about 20 talks. Still, they are yet to find a solution for the land issue.

India is opposing China’s Belt and Road Project. This project wants to connect over 150 countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas by road and rail, along with pipelines and optical fiber cable networks. India is also opposing China’s investments in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Bhutan and Nepal. Another worry for India is that China continues to support Pakistan, its “all-weather” ally, in the Kashmir issue.

Nobody has a clue whether some of these issues will be taken up for discussion in the meetings tomorrow.

08/10/2019

One half of The Nobel Prize for Physics for 2019 has been awarded to cosmologist James Peebles. And the other half of the Prize is shared by astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz who discovered the first exoplanet.

James Peebles developed a useful guide for us to understand cosmology. Cosmology is the study of the entire universe. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the universe.

Astronomy is the study of the heavenly bodies like stars, planets, and galaxies. Astronomers study the positions, characteristics, motion, evolution, chemistry, and physics of the heavenly bodies.

Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz were the first to find a planet orbiting a star, which is not sun. This planet is known as an exoplanet. Exo in Greek means outside.

This is called an exoplanet because it is outside our solar system. In 1995, these two astronomers discovered the exoplanet (later named 51 Pegasi b) about half the mass of Jupiter. It orbits a star (named: 51 Pegasi) located about 50 light-years away from us.

After their discovery, till today, over 4,000 exoplanets have been discovered in the Milky Way.

07/10/2019

The Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to three scientists for their discovery of how cells behave when the supply of oxygen goes up or down.

The scientists Sir Peter Ratcliffe, of the University of Oxford and Francis Crick Institute, William Kaelin, of Harvard, and Gregg Semenza, of Johns Hopkins University share the physiology or medicine prize. They carried out many research in hypoxia. Hypoxia is a dangerous condition that happens when our bodies do not get enough oxygen.

When we do exercises or when we go to high altitude places, the oxygen levels in the body drops. Depending on the supply of oxygen, cells have to make changes to the process of producing energy.

The scientists together found the exact mechanism that makes cells understand how much oxygen is there, and what to do about it. Their findings can help scientists invent medicines to fight anemia, cancer and many other diseases.

17/09/2019

On attacks on the oil fields in Saudi Arabia, and how they affect petrol prices in India.

The rebels who rule most of Yemen attacked oil fields in Saudi Arabia on Saturday (14th September) using drones. Saudi Arabia supplies crude oil to many countries including India. Since drones dama…

16/09/2019

Mutual Funds Disappoint Investors

Most people who invested in small-cap Mutual Funds in the recent years got no returns. Some of them lost upto 8% of their investment in the last 5 years. Companies need money to run their busines…

13/09/2019

New discovery. Water is found in another planet. For the first time.

For the first time, scientists have found water in another planet. The name of the planet is K2-18b. It is not in our Solar system. It belongs to a group of stars called Leo constellation. K2-18b p…

11/09/2019

On poor sales of vehicles in India.

In India, vehicles are not selling well in the last few months. The total number of vehicles sold in the country in August was 18 lakhs. But, during the same month last year, over 24 lakhs were sol…

07/09/2019

Vultures die; Diseases rise. Today is International Vulture Awareness Day.

The first Saturday in September is the International Vulture Awareness Day. Vulture is a large bird with almost no feathers on its head or neck. They live by eating the flesh of dead animal. That i…