I spend a significant amount of time seeing healthy young children whose parents are convinced that their child has an eating disorder

Any parent of a toddler knows that mealtimes can be a minefield.

But in this week's Scrubbing Up health column, child health specialist Su Laurent says some are attributing their offspring's dietary foibles to an eating disorder, rather than bad behaviour.

Some parents think that their baby has an inability to swallow solids, others think that their child will fade away unless they are offered the few foods which they like and some parents say that their child eats nothing at all, despite the fact that they are consuming a packet of "Wotsits" in front of me!

All three situations are examples of how powerful a weapon food is and how quickly children can gain the upper hand over their parents.

All three scenarios can be helped by a good health visitor, but sadly there are no longer enough health visitors to spend the time needed with first-time parents.

The difficulty I face is that parents often have a fixed idea that their child has a disorder and it can be very hard to convince them that, on the contrary, their child is very powerful and is getting away with eating exactly what they want!

It's often easier for a doting parent to believe that a child has a medical problem than a behavioural one.

My heart sinks when I hear stories of mealtimes taking hours, of children being force-fed and parents sneaking food into their child while they're watching TV so that they won't notice they are being fed.

Some parents surprise their toddlers by popping out from behind the sofa in an attempt to stuff a spoon full of food into their mouths.

Others accept that their child will only eat chips, chicken nuggets and chocolate cereal.

One mother told me with pride that since the last time I saw her seven-year-old in clinic he'd tried a new food: he was now happy to eat KFC chips in addition to McDonald's chips.

You can imagine the expression on my face!

These children are often overweight, and yet their parents live in fear of starving their child unless they are given exactly what they want to eat.

In these families food dominates, the parents have got themselves into a rut and can't see a way out.

'Don't give in?'

So how should these issues be tackled?

The basic principles are:

* Make eating fun
* Eat with your child whenever possible
* Stop any force-feeding
* Let him follow your example and feed himself, however messy he becomes
* Remember that a normal child will not allow himself to starve

Babies can eat finger foods from a very young age but parents are often fearful of the resultant mess and prefer to feed them off a spoon.

A baby who feels he's being force-fed has an amazing ability to clamp his jaw shut, turn his head away and even gag on food and refuse to swallow.

Offer your child a small amount of healthy food and clear the plate away after 15 minutes even if he's eaten nothing.

Don't make a big thing about it and resist all temptations to give him a snack before the next meal even if he's grumpy.

Limit milk to a pint a day, many poor eaters get most of their calories from milk. Encourage your child to drink water or very dilute fruit juice.

Reward your child for trying something new and don't punish him for refusing to try.

A very stubborn child may refuse to eat for two or three meals but eventually will have to give in unless he's being offered snacks between meals.

Of course, as a mother of three I confess that all of this can be easier said than done.

Remember the basic principles that food is a powerful weapon and your child won't fade away if he eats nothing for a day or two.

Another fifteen cases of swine flu were confirmed yesterday by the Health Protection Agency, bringing the UK total to 244. One of the cases was in Wal

One of the UK's leading flu experts has predicted that a pandemic of swine flu is likely to strike Britain in the autumn. Professor John Oxford, an expert on virology at Queen Mary School of Medicine, University of London, says that children going back to school, universities reopening and people going back to work after the summer break would give swine flu the "opportunity" that it needs to spread.

But Professor Oxford thinks that many cases are going undetected:

"Already, sporadic cases in the UK have been shown that are not linked with cases that have travelled. That does suggest that the virus is silently spreading around."

However, he said that people should behave as usual, as far as possible, if a pandemic strikes. "What we don't want is people stopping at home and not going to work, because then you have an economic problem on top of a pandemic," he said. "The best advice is to carry on as normal but to be sensible about it. "This includes a bit of social distancing and shielding people from coughs by coughing into the crux of your arm."

Professor Oxford said that in the next few months, global health officials will be keeping a close eye on what happens to the H1N1 swine flu virus in countries like Australia and South Africa. The southern hemisphere is entering its winter and the peak period for flu. On Friday, the World Health Organization reported that Australia has had 147 confirmed cases; Argentina has had 37; and none so far in South Africa.

What happens in the southern hemisphere in the coming months will be a good indicator of how the virus will behave in Europe and North America later this year. There would be particular concern if H1N1 mutated substantially to become a more virulent illness. Thankfully, there are no signs of that yet.

The Australian Science Media Centre is an excellent resource for anyone wanting to know what experts are thinking about the spread of the virus there. The Science Media Centre in London has lots of reliable specialist comments on flu and a host of other issues.

woman wearing mask at Grand Central Station, New YorkAlthough most deaths from the virus have been in Mexico, it's the United States which has been th

If you ask most people where you are most likely to catch H1N1 swine flu, my guess is they would answer, Mexico. That was the case initially, but has not been for some time.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) CDC H1N1 Flu website has reported 10,053 probable or confirmed cases of swine flu, up from nearly 9,000 on Friday and 17 deaths. Furthermore, the virus has spread to all 50 states.

The CDC has estimated that perhaps only one in 20 cases ever gets recorded. If that is the case then it would suggest there could be 200,000 people in the US who have contracted the virus.

In one sense that would be worrying, as it would indicate that H1N1 is well and truly here to stay and that a pandemic is almost certain. But it would also confirm that the virus is causing mostly very mild illness, and mean that the death toll from a pandemic might be no worse than with seasonal flu.

Remember though that scientists are still learning about the virus and are unsure how any pandemic might

The World Health Organisation says the global number of confirmed cases of H1N1 is 17,410 in 62 countries, including 115 deaths. Since then, Bulgaria and Luxembourg have confirmed their first cases of the disease.

"We are getting closer to phase six," said Dr Fukuda, which would mean that a pandemic had occurred. He divided the global outbreak into three types

Dr Keiji Fukuda, WHO's Assistant Director-General, said that the virus had now reached 64 countries with 18,965 laboratory-confirmed cases and 117 deaths.

• countries in North America where virus spread is advanced - Mexico, the United States and Canada;
• the group of countries - which he described as being "in transition", some in Europe, some in Asia, also Australia - where a larger number of cases is occurring, many linked to institutions;
• countries where there is no real evidence of spread into communities and cases are largely travel-related.

Dr Fukuda said that the countries in transition are moving towards community-type spread and include the UK, Spain, Japan, Chile and Australia. "But we are still waiting for evidence of widespread community activity, so that's why we are not in phase six yet".

He went on to say that the WHO was choosing not to describe the outbreak as mild. "This infection can be fatal - in those who have underlying medical conditions, pregnant women and in some people who were otherwise healthy."

And he said that we don't know what will happen in the southern hemisphere in the coming months, or in the northern hemisphere later in the year. The severity of the outbreaks, he said, would vary from location to location, according to the vulnerability of populations and their preparedness.

I asked Dr Fukuda which age groups were most likely to catch the virus and to die from it. "The majority of people who have got infected are under 60 years of age, although some people over 60 have also got infected," he said.

"Those who have got severely ill - with complications such as severe pneumonia and those who have died - have tended to be younger to middle age adults aged 20-40 or so, but not exclusively."

That ties in with the pattern one might expect from a flu pandemic. Normal seasonal flu tends to hit the elderly most severely; in pandemics, it is often young adults who are worst affected.

Also today, two people in Scotland have been admitted to intensive care with swine flu. A 45-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman are being treated in intensive care at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley. The Scottish government said that they were both in a "critical but stable" condition.

As yet, neither person has any known links to other cases, to travel or to each other. The man is believed to be the first person in Britain to be taken critically ill, suffering only from swine flu. The woman is said to have underlying health problems as does a third patient, a 38-year-old man, who was admitted to intensive care at a hospital in Glasgow last week.

Dr Tiller, who performed so-called late term abortions, had long been a focus of anti-abortion groups in the US

Scott Roeder, 51, was charged with the first-degree murder of Dr George Tiller, who was shot dead on Sunday at a church in Wichita.

Mr Roeder is also charged with aggravated assault against two people who tried to intervene in the attack.

Mr Roeder is being held in a Wichita jail and appeared in Sedgwick County District Court, also in Wichita, via video link.

The suspect has requested a lawyer and has been assigned to the public defender's office, the Kansas City Star newspaper reported.

A preliminary hearing has been tentatively set for 16 June, the report added.

Mr Roeder was arrested in a suburb of Kansas City about 170 miles (274km) from the scene, some three hours after the shooting at the Reformation Lutheran Church.

Dr Tiller's clinic - Women's Health Care Services - had often been the site of demonstrations, and he had been shot and wounded by an assailant 16 years ago.

Following the fatal shooting, US Attorney General Eric Holder promised protection to "appropriate people and facilities".

Anti-abortion groups in the US have denounced Dr Tiller's killing.

Eating a curry once or twice a week could help prevent the onset of Alzheimer's disease and dementia, a US researcher suggests

The key ingredient is curcumin, a component of the spice turmeric.

Curcumin appears to prevent the spread of amyloid protein plaques - thought to cause dementia - in the brain.

But the theory, presented at the Royal College of Psychiatrists' annual meeting, has been given a lukewarm reception by UK experts.

Amyloid plaques, along with tangles of nerve fibres, are thought to contribute to the degradation of the wiring in brain cells, eventually leading to symptoms of dementia.

Professor Murali Doraiswamy, of Duke University in North Carolina, said there was evidence that people who eat a curry meal two or three times a week have a lower risk of dementia.
He said researchers were testing the impact of higher doses - the equivalent of going on a curry spree for a week - to see if they could maximise the effect.

Animal studies
Professor Doraiswamy told the meeting: "There is very solid evidence that curcumin binds to plaques, and basic research on animals engineered to produce human amyloid plaques has shown benefits."
"You can modify a mouse so that at about 12 months its brain is riddled with plaques.
"If you feed this rat a curcumin-rich diet it dissolves these plaques. The same diet prevented younger mice from forming new plaques.
"The next step is to test curcumin on human amyloid plaque formation using newer brain scans and there are plans for that."

Professor Doraiswamy said a clinical trial was now underway at the University of California, Los Angeles, to test curcumin's effects in Alzheimer's patients.
He said research had also examined turmeric's therapeutic potential for treating conditions such as cancer and arthritis.

Good diet
He stressed that eating a curry could not counter-balance the increased risk of dementia associated with a poor diet.
However, he said: "If you have a good diet and take plenty of exercise, eating curry regularly could help prevent dementia."
Professor Doraiswamy predicted it might be possible to develop a curry pill which had the same therapeutic effect.

However, Rebecca Wood, of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, stressed that people would need to eat a lot of curry - over 100g of turmeric curry powder - to get a clinical dose of curcumin.

She said: "Professor Doraiswamy's unpublished research applies only to animal models; his hypothesis has not been confirmed in human clinical trials.
"We look forward to the results of the human curcumin trial at UCLA."
Dr Susanne Sorensen, of the Alzheimer's Society, said: "Indian communities that regularly eat curcumin have a surprisingly low incidence of Alzheimer's disease but we don't yet know why.

"Alzheimer's Society is keen to explore the potential benefits of curcumin in protecting the brain and we are conducting our own research into this area.
"A cheap, accessible and safe treatment could transform the quality of life of thousands of people with the condition."

Chinese scientists have given cells from adult pigs the ability to turn into any tissue in the body, just like embryonic stem cells.

They hope the breakthrough could aid research into human disease, and the breeding of animals for organ transplants for humans.

It may also enable the development of pigs that are resistant to diseases such as swine flu.

The study appears online in the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology.


This breakthrough to produce pig stem cells potentially reinvigorates the quest to grow humanised pig organs
Professor Chris Mason
University College London

Lead researcher Dr Lei Xiao, of the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, said many other attempts had been made to transform adult cells from animals such as pigs into "pluripotent" stem cells, but they had failed.

He said: "Therefore, it is entirely new, very important and has a number of applications for both human and animal health."

Dr Xiao's team reprogrammed cells taken from a pig's ear and bone marrow, using a cocktail of chemicals introduced into the cells via a virus.

Tests showed that the reprogrammed cells were capable of becoming any of the cell types that make up the three layers in a developing embryo.

Ideal source

Dr Xiao said pigs were a potentially ideal source of organs for transplant, as their organs were similar in function and size to those found in humans.

He said reprogrammed stem cells could potentially be used to make a pig organ compatible to the human immune system, minimising the risk of rejection.

The cells could also be used to mimic human disease in pigs, allowing scientists to test new therapies without requiring human volunteers.

In addition to medical applications, Dr Xiao said his discovery could be used to improve animal farming, by making the animals healthier, and regulating the way they grow.

However, he warned it could take several years before some of the potential medical applications of his research could be used in the clinic.

Professor Chris Mason, an expert in regenerative medicine at University College London, said: "This breakthrough to produce pig stem cells potentially reinvigorates the quest to grow humanised pig organs such as pancreases for diabetics and kidneys for chronic renal failure.

"The clinical use of humanised porcine tissues and organs (xenografts) has moved a long way forward in recent months with successful small-scale clinical trials.

"Whilst the xenograft approach may not necessarily be the long-term solution, it may represent a major step change in the treatment of organ failure, which potentially could deliver real benefit to millions of patients within a decade."

Kurram agency, like neighbouring North Waziristan, is also divided into three administrative areas or sub-divisions - Upper, Central and Lower Kurram

The Taliban (who are Sunni Muslims) do not have a significant presence in Upper Kurram as the local population are Shias. Shias are also found in one town in Lower Kurram, Alizai. Otherwise, the Taliban are present almost everywhere else in Kurram where the Sunni population dominates.

Foreign Taliban fighters are believed to have moved into Kurram and adjoining Orakzai agencies since 2008 when missile attacks by suspected US military drones became more frequent in north-west Pakistan.

The Taliban are now in almost total control of two of the three sub-divisions of Khyber agency, including Jamrod and Bara

Of the tribal areas of the North West Frontier, Khyber agency is the only one where different religious organisations operate. There are three known religious groups - Lashkar-i-Islam (Army of Islam) headed by Mangal Bagh, Ansar-i-Islam (Companions of Islam) headed by Qazi Mehboobul Haq and Amar Bil Maroof (Organisation for Virtues) headed by Niaz Gul.

The Taliban presence in Khyber is fairly recent and most analysts link it to Nato's use of the main road through the Khyber pass to Afghanistan. The Taliban are believed to have moved into the area to attack convoys carrying supplies for Nato forces in Afghanistan. There has been a spate of such attacks.

Sectarian tension between Shias and Sunnis is yet another fault line, which deepened after a 2006 suicide attack on a Shia procession in Hangu

Hangu, neighbouring Orakzai, is believed to be under the control of Hakimullah Mehsud, the right-hand man of Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. Those parts of Hangu that border Orakzai are dominated by the Taliban.

The district also shares borders with two other Taliban strongholds, Kurram and Waziristan. Most analysts argue that if government fails to take steps to check the increasing influence of the Taliban in Hangu, the radical elements now confined to its border areas could soon expand their activities to other areas of district.

Local police say 84 people, many of them security personnel, were killed and more than 100 injured in various violent incidents during 2008

Traditionally famous for its flowers and sweets, Dera Ismail Khan (or D.I. Khan) has not escaped the increase in Taliban activity seen elsewhere in North West Frontier Province.

Two groups of militants are active in D.I. Khan, one of them involved in sectarian attacks, the other in attacks on security forces. Taliban active in neighbouring Waziristan have claimed responsibility for almost all the attacks on security personnel.

After troops stepped up an anti-Taliban drive in Waziristan in 2008, large numbers of tribal families settled in D.I. Khan. Some government officials fear that militants might also have left Waziristan and settled in D.I. Khan.

Most analysts agree there will be no end to violence in D.I. Khan until peace is restored in neighbouring tribal areas and concerted action is taken to stop the sectarian attacks.

Buner is only 100km (65 miles) from the capital, Islamabad. The military launched an operation against the militants in April after the so-called Swat

The district is popular with Pashtuns visiting the tomb of a Sufi saint, but traditional religious freedoms have been eroded. Militants from Swat tried to enter Buner in 2008 but were thwarted by locals. An armed clash between the two sides at Shilabandi left six Taliban dead, and the Taliban retreated to their bases in Swat. Local resistance did not go unpunished, however, as nearly 50 people were later killed by the militants.

After Sharia law was introduced in Swat, the Taliban again decided to target Buner as part of efforts to expand their area of influence. After negotiations with locals, the Taliban were permitted to operate in the district. Since then all barber shops and music stores have closed down.

which borders troubled Waziristan

Bannu is a so-called "settled" (rather than "tribal") area in North West Frontier Province. The district has witnessed a number of attacks on security forces. Civilians have also been killed.

But locals do not have strong tribal affiliations with the Taliban, and the local Taliban have not been successful in building support for their activies in Bannu.

Bajaur is one of those tribal areas where the Taliban established themselves early on

Analysts have long suspected the region to be the hiding place of Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and other top al-Qaeda leaders. It is an area where suspected US drones launched their earliest missile strikes.

Maulvi Faqir Mohammad is the chief commander of the Taliban in Bajaur and is said to lead a force of nearly 10,000 armed militants. A year-long military operation ended in Bajaur early this year but a peace agreement has broken down and the Taliban are back in control in most areas outside the regional capital, Khar.

Maulvi Omar, spokesman for the militant alliance Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP), comes from Bajaur. Taliban camps are reported at various places in Bajaur, such as Salarzai and Dasht.

Research by the BBC Urdu's service into the growing strength of Taliban militants in north western Pakistan shows that only 38% of the area remains un

This map of the area is a snapshot of the current situation. However, with ongoing fighting between the Pakistan armed forces and the Taliban the situation on the ground could change in the future.

In Pakistan's north-western district of Kohistan, public discourse is dominated by security issues, not the recently enacted Sharia (Islamic) law.

In Pakistan's north-western district of Kohistan, public discourse is dominated by security issues, not the recently enacted Sharia (Islamic) law. Kohistan Kohistan is mountainous with none of the Swat valley's plains The government is worried that if it fails to extend security cover to this largely ungoverned district, the Taliban will. But the local tribes do not want either the army or the Taliban in the area. "If the army comes in, the Taliban will follow, and vice versa," says an influential tribal elder and former member of parliament, Malik Saeed Ahmad. "In either case, it threatens our way of life." Nightmare scenario The local people, being of a different ethnic stock from the Pashtuns, are opposed to the predominantly Pashtun Taliban. See a map of the region There is also a widespread belief that the Taliban are the creation of the army and are being used for the army's "secret" aims. The tribes are proposing to raise their own tribal force to check possible incursions by the Taliban, who have bases in the neighbouring Swat district to the west.
But officials think such a force is unlikely to match the Taliban's equipment, training and discipline. The local police are also insufficient in numbers and resources to do the job, they say. "It is highly likely that the Taliban will try to enter Kohistan after being squeezed by the army in Swat valley," says a senior official, requesting not to be named. This is a nightmare scenario.
Unlike Swat, where the militants' influence is concentrated in the central plains of the valley and the road network is good, Kohistan is 7,400 sq km of sheer mountains rising from 2,400 to 3,700 metres, with virtually no plains. And there are no roads which the army could use to transport heavy equipment to different western valleys for defence purposes. Members of the Dassu jirga The Dassu jirga discusses how to stop Taliban incursions into Kohistan The only road that passes through the district is the key Karakoram Highway (KKH) that connects Pakistan with China. Officials are worried that once inside Kohistan, the Taliban could render this highway permanently insecure. But their chief concern at the moment is the security of a Chinese construction firm which is building a hydro-power project on the Indus river in the Dubair area of Kohistan.

Chinese workers have been a favourite target of the Taliban. This is partly because the Taliban sympathise with the ethnic Uighur Islamic militants of western China who are waging a separatist struggle in Xinjiang region. On Tuesday, representatives of all the major and minor tribes of Kohistan gathered at Dassu, the administrative centre of the district, to discuss the issue. The gathering unanimously decided against any military deployment in the area. But they were persuaded by the local administration and police officials to allow a small contingent of troops to guard the Dubair works. The gathering continued for well over two hours, but not a single word was uttered about the new Sharia law which has become a source of hostilities in Swat valley. "The Sharia law has no priority here - in fact, people are not interested in any government law," says Mumtaz Khan Jalkoti, a local lawyer. Sharia law More than two-thirds of Kohistan's 500,000 people live a primitive nomadic life and move up and down the country in search of pastures. Disputes either evolve into family feuds that run for generations, or are mediated by tribal elders who travel with the community. Mumtaz Khan Jalkoti By grouping us with areas like Swat and Buner, the government is exposing us to that threat Mumtaz Khan Jalkoti lawyer In Dassu, there are only about eight lawyers who cater to the legal needs of the entire population.
"Few people bring their grievances to local courts, and fewer pursue them through to the high court which is located at a day's journey from Kohistan, in Abbottabad city," Mr Jalkoti says. Many young lawyers have only fading memory of the Sharia movement of 1994, which at that time used Kohistan as a major base, disrupting traffic on the KKH for several weeks.

The movement was led by Maulana Sufi Mohammad, a cleric from the Dir district of the neighbouring Malakand division. He negotiated the recent failed peace deal between the government and the militants in Swat, also in Malakand. When the government of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) enacted a Sharia law for Malakand region in 1994, its jurisdiction was also extended to Kohistan. Since then, the fervour for the Sharia law has subsided everywhere except Swat. "We wonder why a law basically demanded by the people of Malakand division has also been extended to Kohistan, which is not a part of that division," says Abdul Hakim, another lawyer. At Tuesday's gathering in Dassu, Maulana Sufi Mohammad's top aide in Kohistan back in 1994, Maulana Abdul Halim, was the most vociferous in his anti-Taliban tirade. But every fresh enactment of the Sharia law has since been routinely extended to Malakand division as well as Kohistan. Mumtaz Khan Jalkoti says this amounts to conceding a moral upper hand to the Taliban in the government's battle for influence in Kohistan. "There is no evidence of Talibanisation in Kohistan, but by grouping us with areas like Swat and Buner, the government is exposing us to that threat."

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Nearly 2.4m people have fled their homes as a result of the fighting

Before the army began its assault, the Taliban were reported to be controlling territory less than 100 kilometres from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

The Pakistani public has on the whole been fully behind the army's military campaign, in contrast to the country's media, which had been at best ambivalent about the fight against the Taliban.

However, many parts of the media are changing their attitude.

One of the most significant turning points was when private television channels showed mobile phone footage of a teenage girl being held down and flogged by the Taliban in the Swat Valley.

There has been a real change in Pakistan in the past few months

Pakistan: a country in crisis
The public has had enough of the Taliban and the army has gone to war.
As a result, well over one million people have been forced to flee their homes.
The BBC's Owen Bennett-Jones went to the Swat Valley, where there has been intense fighting.

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Over the last century Mauritania has made several attempts to ban slavery, But finally, in August 2007 owning slaves became a criminal act for the fi

Mauritania - a desert country on Africa's north west coast - has a history of slavery going back 800 years.

Overnight, half a million people - a fifth of the country's population - were officially freed from bondage.

However many of them didn't hear the news. Without having access to broadcast media or the ability to read, and even if they had, it might not have meant much.

David Gutnick of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation visited Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania.

He travelled around the city - including the bustling shanty towns - and finds out more about the rigid caste system that affects all walks of life in Mauritania.

During his journey he travels with his interpretor - who helps him to meet residents in Nouakchott including teachers, religious leaders, and former slaves.

David discovers how the master/slave relationship in Mauritiania can't be easily swept aside.