Effective Jan. 1, junk food and drink manufacturers were banned by the state from running their advertisements on U.K. television for programs under 16. It extends an existing ban for shows that targets children below 10 years old.

The prohibition seeks to curb the rising incidents of obesity among young Britons. It affects commercials for food and drinks high in fat, salt and sugar. The ban includes advertisements for youth-oriented and adult television programs that have large numbers of young viewers

According to a recently conducted study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, teenagers, participated in sex education classes in school, are far more likely to delay sex than those who didn't.

The teenage boys were 71 percent less likely to have sex before 15, while girls were about 60 percent more likely to put off sex until at least age 15 if they had participated in sex education classes

Top officials of China have vowed to implement stiffer measures related to smoking following reports that 540 million Chinese suffer from secondhand smoke and about a million people across the region die annually due to tobacco related diseases.

In a top level conference focusing on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) held Saturday in Beijing, the delegates signed a proposal calling for a no-smoking environment and an implementation of a law banning smoking in public places

Deaths from asthma, a common chronic disease among children, could increase by nearly 20 per cent by 2016 unless urgent action is taken to reduce emissions from vehicles and factories, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Wednesday.

Citing data from the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF said the three biggest killers of children under five - respiratory infections, diarrhea diseases and malaria - are closely linked to environmental factors

Massive town and state efforts to combat heroin addiction in Charlestown is yielding into a victory for one of America's oldest communities. After a wave of youth deaths due to heroin overdose hit the town in the early 2000s, OD cases went down this year by 66 percent compared to 2004, while there has been no heroin deaths reported for the entire year.

For the 3-year period 2003 to 2005, there were 123 drug overdose incidents and 13 deaths attributed to heroin or OxyContin, a prescription painkiller