Can drinking one less bottle of coke a day halve obesity?
More or Less: Behind the Stats
BBC
4.6 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 9 July 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news and in life. This week:
Is the secret to halving obesity rates really just a matter of cutting back on one fizzy drink a day?
How many new babies in the City of London have a foreign-born parent? And since fewer than one baby a week is actually born in the City of London, how much should we care?
Electricity in the UK is more expensive than almost anywhere else. Why? And is it anything to do with wind turbines?
And we help out rival Radio 4 programme Start the Week with a claim about churches.
If you’ve seen a number in the news you think we should take a look at, email the team: [email protected]
More or Less is produced in partnership with the Open University.
Presenter: Tim Harford Reporter: Lizzy McNeill Producer: Nicholas Barrett and Nathan Gower Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound Mix: James Beard Editor: Richard Vadon
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Transcript
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| 0:35.7 | Hello and welcome to the last in this series of more or less. |
| 0:39.3 | We are your ever-watchful guide to statistical wisdom and numerical tomfoolery, and I'm Tim Harford. |
| 0:46.5 | This week is the secret to halving obesity rates really just a matter of cutting back on one fizzy drink a day? |
| 0:54.5 | How many new babies in the city of London have a foreign-born parent? |
| 0:59.0 | And since fewer than one baby a week is actually born in the city of London, how much should we care? |
| 1:04.4 | Electricity in the UK is more expensive than almost anywhere else. |
| 1:09.4 | Why? And is it anything to do with windmills? And we help out |
| 1:13.9 | start the week with a claim about churches. But first, many of you got in touch by emailing |
| 1:21.0 | more or less at BBC.co.com. UK to ask about a claim made by Health Secretary Wes Streeting. |
| 1:28.3 | Discussing new standards to encourage food manufacturers and supermarkets to offer healthier food |
| 1:34.2 | and thus cut the calories consumed by consumers, part of the government's 10-year health plan, |
... |
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