and also on the show, providing the nuts and bolts to power the ai revolution. i catch up with the boss of the digital tech giant cisco systems on its latest moves in the world of machine learning. wherever you'rejoining me from around the world, once again, a big hello and a warm welcome to the show. obesity is defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation in the body that presents a risk to health. and more and more of us across the world are falling into that category. the good news is that the percentage of the world's population who are underweight is declining. but obesity is now the most common form of malnutrition in most countries. they can mean too much as well as too little food. and it comes with a hefty price tag. the causes of weight gain are complex, and it's important when we talk about the economic impact of the disease that the costs

are not attributable to individual behaviour, but they're part of a much larger environment of influences that experts call obesogenic. these are factors surrounding people's lives. that tend to cause obesity, like easy access to energy, dense, cheap food and reduced physical activity. widely recognised as the driving forces behind the escalating obesity crisis. speaking to lawmakers in the uk about diet and obesity, one expert described the struggle facing people who are trying to eat more healthily, comparing it to giving up smoking before modern restrictions came into place. if we had this committee meeting in the 705, perhaps even in the early eighties, we'd all have been sitting here smoking, or many of us would have. if any one of us was trying to stop smoking, because by the 705, actually, it was widely known that cigarettes

did cause harm, it would have been nearly impossible. there would have been cigarettes for sale in vending machines. there would be multiple opportunities. our cab driver coming here would have been smoking. now the same is true for the current environment and the harmful food, whether we call it high fat, salt, sugar, whether we call it ultra processed food, it is ubiquitous. it is all around us. it is marketed to us constantly. let's have a look at the numbers. obesity is now thought to affect more than a billion people across the planet, with the economic impact of excessive weight calculated to have knocked around $2 trillion off the world economy in 2020. that's set to rise to more than 3 trillion by the end of the decade. now, the vast majority of these costs are not down to health care alone. that's estimated to be around a third, though, due to the invisible indirect costs to the economy because of poor health. with obesity linked to conditions like heart disease and type two diabetes and lower worker productivity with higher levels of absenteeism and unemployment. the solutions, like the disease, are complex. the latest game changer has come in the form of cutting edge appetite, suppressing drugs.

they've shown results so significant that the bank, goldman sachs, predicts their uptake could significantly boost the us economy's productivity. but those drugs are only part of the story. to get an idea of the scope of the issues, i caught up with the boss of the world obesity federation, johanna ralston, chief executive of the world obesity federation. thank you forjoining us. obesity as a major health issue is not new, of course, but do you think things are getting better or worse? thanks so much. unfortunately, they're getting worse. the continued lack of a comprehensive approach to obesity has has meant that a lot of very useful efforts have not come together to impact the overall obesity levels globally.

globally, we're seeing about a billion people now living with obesity and rates going up by 50% to 2035. it is a complex issue, of course, but if you were to try to simplify it, where do you think the biggest problem lies? is it bad diet or a lack of exercise? it's funny when people ask me those questions, is it diet or lack of exercise? is it genetic? is it biological? i say yes. the challenge is that it's all of those things. so a comprehensive approach means we address diet, we address physical inactivity. we also address the genetic drivers of obesity and the ways that obesity has not been sufficiently included in health systems or in primary care. so how much of the blame must we as individuals accept that it's up to us to make smarter decisions with our food choices and how active we are? i think it's important it's incredibly important for individuals to to have better options for food choices. and that is the environment in which we live. and a lot of people live in places —

you've heard of food deserts, places where there's really incredibly limited options. it's easy to say it's the blame or the fault of the individual, but that's their they're operating in an environment where fast food is cheaper and more readily available. how much of the blame should rest with the food industry of today? for, offering cheap energy, dense foods that are so easy to get, so cheap to, so cheap to buy. well, it's one of those things where yesterday solutions let's have cheaper food, accessible to more people to help solve hunger has turned in today's problems. certainly, it's not been helpful with some some actors in the food industry focusing on shorter term profits and delivering value to shareholders, which is what they're legally designed to do, but not but not addressing the longer—term health consequences of that and in fact, the costs to society. so that's absolutely a factor.

but in our desire to have one single villain in a very simple narrative will overlook a lot of the other drivers that are contributing to this, including including all the ways that physical activity has been curtailed, including by covid. we've been looking at the economic impact of obesity, its impact on productivity, the trend towards higher unemployment and absenteeism. i wonder, what do you think is the appropriate response to that or whether, in fact, we need to start making accommodations at work for people who are obese? we see the workplace as an incredibly important part of the solution. and indeed, there's a number of companies that are working towards having more employee responsive approaches, responsive to the concerns of employees and their families around overweight and obesity. last year, the world obesity federation published data showing

that about more than 51% of the world's population by 2035 — so just over a decade from — now would be living with overweight or obesity. employers can play a role in addressing stigma and using person first language that identifies the person with obesity rather than the obese person to really humanise and and create respect around the individual who's who's experiencing this. one of the most concerning trends, of course, is the fact that school aged children and adolescents are experiencing obesity rates more than quadrupling over the last 30 years. of course, these are the workers of tomorrow. what does that say about society's management of this crisis? a child with obesity is certainly much more likely to become an adult with obesity and then to have all the attendant health issues. we're also learning some of the economic impacts of that in terms of what does it mean?

the early stages... we're seeing we're seeing hypertension. we're seeing the sort of the bad cholesterol and hyperglycemia at earlier ages that are attributable to associated with obesity. historically, we've thought of obesity as affecting richer countries, more developed countries. i wonder, does the data, the latest data still reflect that? that has been one of the most powerful and shocking in a way change as more people are die of of issues associated with overweight and obesity than underweight around the world. the top countries, in terms of numbers of people living with obesity, in terms of rates of percentage of people with obesity and in terms of rate of growth, of obesity in the population level are almost overwhelmingly and entirely from low and middle income countries. what do you make of these new weight loss drugs? is it possible to medicate ourselves out of this crisis?

you can't treat your way out of most chronic diseases, and obesity is a chronic disease like many others. but that treatment is an incredibly important part of this. so the new therapies that are available and thatjoin other other viable therapies that have been in place for a long time are, ot sounds a little cliched to say it, but they are game changers. they are really having a dramatic i think more dramatic than any expected effects on on people's lives and appear to be associated now with reducing cardiovascular disease, for example. so this is a success story. thank you forjoining us on talking business. thank you. so now we have a grasp of the size of the problem. to find out more about what can be done to tackle the obesity crisis, i've been speaking to the chief medical officer of the world's leading weight loss

firm, weight watchers. dr amy meister, chief medical officer at weight watchers. thank you forjoining us. obesity is, as we know, a societal problem. but i wonder, where do you see the solution? is it personal responsibility or must it be more of a top down approach with employers, the food industry, governments? the food industry, governments doing more? that's a great question. there are so many things that contribute to obesity, which is considered by many to be an epidemic or even a pandemic globally. first, it really takes a commitment and awareness. one of my favourite things to do is over time. i love looking back and even if you just watch tv, old black and white films and you see what people used to eat or even take a cup of coffee, for instance, you would see a tiny little cup of coffee and not these beautiful creations that some of the large, well—known coffee companies have that are so tasty and just loaded with really unhealthy calories or empty calories, as we like to say.

so it's part of the environment that we're in. we know there's problems with health equity and different type of access to resources. additionally, it's really understanding what's the source of truth as well. it's hard to know today, what do i eat? what do i not eat? particularly in the new digital age that we're in a lot of people turn to sources that certainly i didn't have growing up, like the internet, tiktok, youtube, all those type of things to understand what they should or shouldn't consume. and on top of it, there are these new treatments which the actual medications that have been in the market for years, 15 plus years of which i've used to treat people living with other conditions like type two diabetes are now being used for weight loss. fantastic results, however, are very, very costly. so we're talking a lot about the economic implications of the obesity epidemic. what do you see is the cost of not

doing the right thing? the financial—economic cost. the economic cost can be bucketed into many different places. one of the biggest concerns is health outcomes. what we're going to see if we don't make the investment now, we will absolutely see this continue to spiral out of control. we will see an increase in over 200 chronic conditions that are anchored to living in an unhealthy weight. and those are things like type two diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, strokes and even more cancers. so if we don't change now two, three, four or five years from now and even further down the road, we are going to have another crisis. so we've been discussing this term, obesogenic, meaning the lifestyle, environment surrounding people, encouraging their weight gain. how does weight watchers try to counter this for its users? what we do is try to simplify and meet people where you're at.

nobody wants to have this rigid lifestyle that's doom and gloom. that means that we have to eatjust lettuce and carrots and things that don't sound veryjoyful. we want as humans to be able to pick different things, but how do we know moderation. and that's where our science backed point system really helps take take all the maths out of it. the other thing that i think is really important that we talk about when it comes to obesity, it's not just about foods. many people live with multiple chronic conditions, some weight related, some not, but a lot of medications that are prescribed and some common medications, like many of the sleep aids that you can purchase over the counter, actually drive weight gain. so another area that i'm really urging people to discuss with their doctors is to take a look at medicines that you take for other medical conditions that may require treatment still. but perhaps there's another agent that would not drive weight gain. amy, let's get on to the big talking

point of the moment, those weight loss drugs formerly used for treating things like diabetes. how much of a game changer are they for tackling obesity? the glp ones in particular that we're talking about are definitely game changers. they certainly have the lowest side effect profile and definitely are very well tolerated. however, they're not. for everybody i think is really important to know that these drugs however, they're not for everybody i think is really important to know that these drugs in themselves, they're just a band—aid if you don't have the other treatment modalities present, which include a healthier lifestyle, having the right activity, getting good sleep, having the right resilience, all those things are so important to a comprehensive weight plan. weightwatchers has bought a company that provides weight loss drugs. is that because that's the way you see the wind blowing right now? the reason we have both is that we have recognised an understanding that it's not

it's not a one size fits all plan for everybody. everybody�*s biology is different. and there are absolutely some people whose bodies chemistry need much more than just behavioural lifestyle support. they need medication to help them be successful. so you're saying then there are definitely some people who do need these kind of drugs. equally, you'll have clients who you'll say, don't take them, you don't need them. absolutely. the other thing i'd say, i take that one step further at different points in your life, depending on what medications you have, what stressors you have, your environment as things change your weight, health needs also change. so we want to be your partnerfor life, not just what you're dealing with now. so maybe in your 20s you don't need some type of more aggressive weight therapy with medication. but and particularly women, when you hit that perimenopausal period, the average weight gain is 5 to islbs a year.

so it even becomes not about weight loss, but how do you not gain what your body is programmed to gain? so at different times in your life, you'll need different tactics. amy, we have to talk about oprah winfrey because she recently stepped down from the board of weightwatchers, even donated her shareholding because of a potential conflict of interests, because she's been speaking a lot about her use of those weight loss drugs. how much of an impact has that had on weight watchers? actually, although there's one story that you're seeing out there in the media, in the news about what's happening and its impacts. but the reality is we're actually excited because she's evangelizing and supporting us in her most authentic self. she's able to tell her story, not feeling any type of influence and really wants people to understand in the most genuine way that weight health is an issue and you need to address it. and yes, this is one tactic, which is the drugs that's been heavily focused on. but if you listen, you'll hear that she talks a lot about care and that's really where

where we're moving. and she supports us and is lockstep with our message, which is get weight, health care, and there's more ways to do it than just diet alone. so amy, in summary, what do you think? what do you think is it going to take for us to turn the corner, turn the page on this obesity epidemic? it takes people committed at the top from employers, from government officials to really everybody lean in and do their part. everybody has to do their part and do what's right to make this a healthier society at large. and unless we're willing to do that, it's going to continue to be a challenge. doctor amy meister, chief medical officer at weight watchers, thank you for talking to us on talking business. thank you for having me. my pleasure. once the world's most valuable company, the it networking tech giant cisco systems, is one of the biggest providers of the nuts and bolts behind our modern online lives. a vast infrastructure needs

to keep us all connected. it's only set to grow with the advent of the ai revolution, and they're looking to cash in with a major new acquisition just being given the green light. to find out more, i've been speaking to the big boss of cisco systems, chuck robbins, chair and chief executive of cisco systems. thank you forjoining us on talking business. yours is one of the biggest names in computing, so i have to ask, what does the ai future look like to you in ten years' time? for example. how do you think our working lives are going to be different? well, first of all, thanks for having me on. it's really a pleasure to be here. i think ai�*s fundamentally going to change everything. we've talked about the fact that most of these major technology trends in silicon valley, we tend to talk about them for almost a decade before the real impact is felt. this one's different. it's going to change everything about how we deliver education.

it's going to change how people work. when you're in your work environment, you're going to have virtual assistants that are going to be making recommendations to you all day about things that can help you be more productive. when there's a problem, you're going to have an assistant a virtual assistant that's going to tell you three or four potential things that could be causing the problem. and you're going to interact with that. and it's going to help you get to the root cause of what's going on. i think it's going to change how we're entertained. industries like manufacturing with al robotics, and those are just some of the things we know today. and the thing that we don't understand is what has it been invented yet. and i think it'sjust going to be fascinating over the next 5 to 10 years. so what role do you see cisco playing in delivering that al future? there's three ways that i think we're going to participate. first of all, we're going to build the hardware that's going to help run the ai revolution. secondly, we are going to leverage artificial intelligence on massive data sets to help our customers deal with the increasing cybersecurity threats that are out there. and we're going to help our

customers deploy new applications that help them increase their customer engagements, help their employees be more productive, and things of that nature. so we're all super excited by the potential for al to boost productivity, as you say. but we know it's going to take a huge amount of additional. using power. and is there a risk? but we know it's going to take a huge amount of additional computing power. and is there a risk all this extra bandwidth consumes more energy at a time when we're trying to, of course, curtail our energy consumption. there's a lot of discussion right now around the risk associated with energy consumption, with artificial intelligence. and that's why companies like cisco and others, we're working to build next generation hardware that actually consumes less energy but provides increased performance. and we've been doing that for quite a long time. and i think that's going to be key to us actually being able to realise the potential of ai without draining the energy sources around the world. i know the big news of the moment for cisco is the acquisition

of splunk. it is the biggest ever acquisition that you've made. just explain for us why that is the right move for cisco. in its simplest form, what it's going to allow us to do is provide real time insights to all of our customers so that they can detect cybersecurity threats in real time. as we know, the bad actors all around the world as they get their hands on al and they're able to actually be more effective with their cyber attack strategies, we as an industry have to enable our customers to be able to respond faster. and this splunk acquisition is at the heart of allowing us to do that for our customers. so does that suggest that in this ai future hacking risks are going to become an even greater threat? because, of course, they've been climbing for many, many years now? what ai does for the bad actors who are actually launching these cyber attacks is it allows

them to operate an even greater stealth mode than what they are today. it allows them to look more real to you as a user. that email that's coming to you from me isn't from me or my voice speaking to you isn't me. and it's our responsibility to help our customers and help society understand how to recognise these risks, block the risks where they can, but then remediate those that they don't block and do that in real time. and we're going to have to be so much better five years from now than we are today. the other big question about al is regulation. governments around the world are thinking about how to regulate. many don't want to repeat the mistakes of the social media revolution. what kind of regulations do you think we need? well, i think that, look, there are different approaches being taken to ai regulation around the world. and i think the real key is whether you start with a tighter set of regulations or a looser framework. the key is that we're going to the governments are going to have to adapt as we learn more. this is moving so quickly that we're learning every day. and i think the real critical issue

is being ready to adapt. if you have overregulated, you may have to pull back. if you've under—regulated, you may have to move fast on increasing the regulation. and i think governments are going to try to balance policies that don't stifle innovation in this space and don't stifle the benefit realisation, but also require and drive real, responsible use of this technology. on politics, which perhaps is somewhere you don't want to stray. but it is a big year for elections around the world, probably here in the uk, certainly in america. do you think businesses over there are concerned at the outcome of the us presidential race? i think that the ceo community in the united states is first of all, we've become very accustomed to running our companies in times of various crises. and so we sort of are used to this uncertainty. and i think as we look to the election, everyone�*s obviously paying a great deal of attention to it. but we prepare ourselves to work with whatever administration actually is in the white house. it's incumbent upon the business community in the united states, i think, to support

the administration, to work with either administration. and we can always find things that we can align on whether it turns out to be biden or trump. and i think that that's what we're focused on right now. well, whoever wins, what do you want them to do on the big questions of ourtime? one that occurs to me is china. at a time when china us relations are at a low ebb, do you think they need to become friendlier? well, i think the current administration has done a good job of sort of toning things down and making it where we can open our lines of communication with china, even though it's been its clear that we're going to compete. i think it's important as the two largest economies in the world, the world needs us to at least communicate and operate in a way that is not destructive to the global economy.

and i think that's the key to the success of the future administration. ok, chuck robbins, thank you forjoining us on talking business. thank you. well, that's it for this week. i do hope you enjoyed the show. don't forget, you can keep up with the latest on our global economy on the bbc website or smartphone app. you can also follow me on social media. follow me. i'll follow you back. thanks for watching. i'll see you soon. bye— bye. hello there. well, it's certainly been a lively start to the weekend weatherwise. loads of showers around on saturday, some of them with hail and thunder, some of them with mammatus clouds — always a sign of a good storm. now, the showers that went through south parts of greater london, around kent, they really dumped the temperatures. look at that — ten degrees at midday, just two degrees celsius a couple of hours later in the afternoon. that would have felt really cold, especially with those gusty winds. now, over the next few hours, many of the showers will tend to become confined to more

northeastern areas of the uk should become drier over the next few hours in the west. temperatures as we head into the first part of sunday morning, quite chilly around 3 to six degrees celsius. now, sunday will continue to be dominated weatherwise by this area of low pressure — it's the same one that we had on saturday, but it's starting to pull away into the near continent, but still influencing our weather. certainly there'll be lots of showers across northern areas of scotland and a few affecting the east coast of scotland running down east and coastal counties of england as well. some of the showers for these areas will continue to be quite heavy with some hail, whereas across western areas of the uk many areas should have a dry day with some bright or sunny spells. temperatures for most about 10 to 12 degrees — that's average for the time of year. northern scotland, about six to eigh,.tthat�*s a little on the cool side. then into monday, we get another area of low pressure forming

and moving in off the atlantic. this is going to be bringing further outbreaks of rain on monday to northern ireland, wales and western areas of england. probably a dry and bright day for eastern areas of england. the rain starts pushing northwards across scotland and starts to move into the chilly air that we have here. temperatures just six in aberdeen. so through monday night we might actually start to see some of that rain turn to snow. it is going to be quite high up in the high hills of scotland, probably above 300 metres elevation or so, but that could continue to be a risk into tuesday. so you might see a little bit of snow on some of the very high—ish scottish routes in the north. otherwise at lower elevations it's just outbreaks of rain, sleet and a bit of hail that you'll see mixed in. a cold day on tuesday — temperatures around nine or ten for england and wales, just five there in aberdeen. so overall, we're looking at a very unsettled week ahead, a cold start to the week, yes, but it does tend to turn milder as the week goes by. bye for now.

live from washington. this is bbc news russia's vladimir putin promises "vengence" for the deadly attack on a concert hall—claimed by the islamic state group.we�*ll have a special report from the scene of the mass shooting. and the un chief visits the rafah crossing and renews his calls for an immediate ceasefire. plus: there's a new royal response from the princess of wales, and her husband prince william: following her announcement that she is being treated for cancer. hello i'm carl nasman. russian president vladimir putin says all four gunmen involved in the deadly attack on a concert hall in moscow, have been detained. at least 133 people were killed

in the assault, when masked men burst into the venue friday, firing indiscriminately, and detonating explosives. in the russian capital, people have been leaving flowers and lighting candles. memorials also appeared outside russian embassies in several countries — and armed police have been patrolling the area around the crocus city hall. in a televised address, mr putin called it a "barbaric terrorist act" and connected ukraine to the attack. that's despite the islamic state group claiming it carried out the mass shooting. ukrainian president, volodymyr zelensky, reacted angrily to accusations his country was involved. translation: one more thing, what happened in moscow - yesterday, it is obvious that putin and other scumbags are just trying to find someone else to blame. their methods are always the same. we've seen it all before, destroyed buildings, shootings and explosions, and they are always looking for someone to blame our russia editor,

steve rosenberg, has been to the scene of the attack — and a warning, you may