Tag Archives: youth

Flavoured nicotine products driving youth addiction, WHO warns

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This is especially true among youth users: it’s one of the main reasons young people experiment with tobacco or nicotine products in the first place, according to the UN World Health Organization (WHO).  

Flavoured nicotine and tobacco products are inherently addictive and toxic – often more so than regular tobacco. Flavours increase usage, make quitting harder, and have been linked to serious lung diseases, WHO maintains.  

Despite decades of progress in tobacco control, flavoured products are luring a new generation into addiction and contributing to eight million tobacco-related deaths each year.

Youth-oriented marketing

Nicotine products are often marketed directly toward young people through bright and colourful packaging featuring sweet and fruity flavour descriptors.  

Research shows that this type of advertising can trigger reward centres in adolescent brains and weaken the impact of health warnings.

Young people also report a growing presence of flavoured nicotine product marketing across all social media platforms.

This marketing of flavours works across all forms of nicotine and tobacco products, including cigarettes, e-cigarettes, cigars, pouches and hookahs.  

WHO said flavours such as menthol, bubble gum and cotton candy, are “masking the harshness of tobacco” and other nicotine products, turning what are toxic products “into youth-friendly bait.”  

Call for action

Just ahead of World No Tobacco Day, the UN health agency released a series of fact sheets and called on governments to ban all flavours in tobacco and nicotine products to protect young people from lifelong addiction and disease.

It cited Articles 9 and 10 of the successful 2003 Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which obliges countries to regulate the contents and disclosure of tobacco products, including flavourings.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday that “without bold action, the global tobacco epidemic…will continue to be driven by addiction dressed up with appealing flavours.”

As of December 2024, over 50 countries had adopted policies regulating tobacco additives, with most targeting flavourings by banning flavour labels or images and restricting the sale of flavored products. Some also control flavour use during production.

However, the WHO noted that tobacco companies and retailers have found ways to circumvent these rules, offering flavour accessories including sprays, cards, capsules and filter tips, to add to unflavoured products.

Still, WHO is urging all 184 FCTC parties (which make up 90 per cent of the world’s population) to implement and enforce strong bans and restrictions on flavoured products and related additives.

‘We are the present’: Tajik climate activist urges leaders to include youth voices in dialogue

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At the end of April, Fariza Dzhobirova attended a Model United Nations Conference on Glaciers’ Preservation in Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, where she represented Switzerland.

For Ms. Dzhobirova, it was a rehearsal of sorts for the actual High-level Conference on Glaciers’ Preservation which began on Thursday in Dushanbe. There, she will serve as a panel member representing her own country.

“The [Model UN] conference gave me a platform to raise my voice, collaborate with like-minded peers from across the region and develop policy recommendations that we hope will influence real-world decisions,” she said.

The High-level Conference on Glaciers’ Preservation, hosted by the Government of Tajikistan and supported by variety of United Nations agencies, will work to underline the extreme urgency of melting glaciers, elevating it as a global climate and development challenge. 

Will glaciers survive the 21st century? 

Glaciers, alongside ice sheets, account for over 70 per cent of the world’s freshwater resources and are integral to many local economies, providing water, sustaining agriculture and generating energy. 

However, due to the increasing temperature of the planet, glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates – scientists predict that if the current rate of melting continues, many glaciers will not survive the 21st century.

In Tajikistan alone, 30 per cent of glaciers have disappeared over the last century, disrupting local and national water supplies and agricultural patterns. And Slovenia and Venezuela have lost all their glaciers.

Just yesterday, one day before the conference was set to begin, a partial glacier collapse in Switzerland buried most of a small village, according to news reports.

“The death of a glacier is more than just the loss of ice,” said World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.

Youth voices are the present and the future

Before the conference, Parviz Boboev from the UN ountry team in Tajikistan sat down with Ms. Dzhobirova to discuss what motivates her climate activism. 

Fariza Dzhobirova, a young climate activist from Tajikistan, represents Switzerland at a Model United Nations conference on glacier preservation.

Parviz Boboev: What inspired you to get involved in the climate movement?

Fariza Dzhobirova: Growing up in Tajikistan, where more than 90% of our freshwater comes from glaciers, I’ve seen how climate change is already impacting people’s lives. Rivers are shrinking, water is becoming less accessible, and natural disasters like landslides and floods are affecting more and more communities.

I’ve met a family who lost their home because of mudflow. I saw a teenage girl from that family of the same age as me that had totally different problems because of this climate-related disaster. I was thinking about my classes. She was thinking about how to survive.

My message is that young people are not just the future — we are the present, and we are ready to contribute today

And I know there are many examples similar to this – farmers whose land can no longer be irrigated and children whose futures are at risk. Seeing this pain and injustice made it impossible for me to stay silent or uninvolved.

Participating in the upcoming Glaciers’ Preservation conference means a lot to me. It’s about raising the voices of people who are often left out of global discussions. For me, it’s a chance to speak on behalf of my generation and my country, and to show that young people are ready to be part of the solution.

Parviz Boboev: What message do you hope to share at the conference about the impact of climate change on your community and generation?

Fariza Dzhobirova: Being invited to speak is a great responsibility for me. It’s a chance to represent not only Tajikistan, but the voice of a generation.

My message is that young people are not just the future — we are the present, and we are ready to contribute today. Climate change is not only about the environment — it’s about how we live, how we work, how we learn. It affects our opportunities, our mental health, our ability to plan for the future. And yet, many young people are still excluded from decision-making processes.

At the conference, I want to encourage leaders and policymakers to truly listen not just to the facts and data, but to the experiences and hopes of young people. When you give youth a platform, you don’t just invest in their potential — you strengthen the resilience and sustainability of entire communities.

Parviz Boboev: Youth voices are becoming increasingly important in global climate conversations. How do you see the role of young people in shaping solutions?

Fariza Dzhobirova: I truly believe that young people have a unique role to play in shaping more just, inclusive and forward-looking climate solutions. We bring fresh ideas, the courage to question outdated systems and a strong sense of responsibility for the future.

In countries like Tajikistan, where glaciers are directly connected to people’s livelihoods, youth are already stepping up. What we need now is more trust and investment in young people. We don’t expect to solve everything alone, but we do hope to be included — in dialogue, in decision-making, and in designing real solutions.

Protecting glaciers and water resources is not just a technical challenge; it’s a human one. By working together — across generations and borders — we can make our region stronger, more resilient, and more united in the face of climate change.

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Pandemic accord can be a ‘gamechanger’ for marginalised communities, says youth advocate

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Mr. Hassan and his fellow Youth Councillors advise and actively engage with the WHO Director-General and the agency’s senior leadership, designing and expanding the agency’s programmes and strategies.

In an interview with UN News ahead of the 2025 World Health Assembly – the UN’s highest forum for global health – Mr. Hassan, who was born and raised in Texas, USA,  explains why he started iCure, a global non-profit organisation designed to ensure that all people receive access to preventative medical screening, and how the pandemic treaty could radically improve care for vulnerable communities.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Courtesy of Rehman Hassan

Rehman Hassan: 10 years ago, my grandfather passed away from heart disease. I saw how he was treated differently because of the way that he presented himself, as an immigrant and a person of colour. He was very knowledgeable, but he had limited literacy, and he wasn’t necessarily told what all his options were. I felt that the doctors tried to rush him into surgery and that they forced him to be anaesthetized because they believed he was moving around too much, when in fact he was just in pain and uncomfortable.

I’m convinced that he didn’t get the care that he deserved and that really resonated with me, because I wanted to make sure that no one else felt that way. I saw that, as a young person, my role could involve working at a community level, mobilising other young people to promote things like good diet or exercise, and advocate for those who need help.

That’s how iCure started, and it has blossomed into an international movement. We have hosted a youth fellowship programme with around 65 young people from all over the world, from Vietnam to Qatar to Puerto Rico, discussing the health issues they’re seeing and how to address them, as trusted members of their communities, to bridge the kinds of information gaps that are very common in many marginalized communities, especially amongst low income people and immigrants.

UN News: Tell me about your personal experience during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Rehman Hassan: The pandemic was, for many people across the world, a deeply difficult, scary, intense process. I was living with my grandparents who were immunocompromised, and I knew that they were at significant risk. Whilst we had a lot of vaccines in the US, there was a lot of pandemic disinformation and misinformation; presenting it as something that had a low mortality rate and that we could ignore.

In addition, we had a major winter storm in Texas that froze the state for almost two weeks. We didn’t have access to electricity, gas or water. Our house was flooded and ultimately was destroyed. This combination of the climate crisis and the pandemic meant that many people, especially in my community, were left behind and did not receive the resources that they needed.

Children in Mexico received food baskets during the COVID-19 pandemic (file, 2022)

UN News: The WHO says that the pandemic preparedness treaty, if and when it is adopted, will be a breakthrough for health equity and make a real difference on the ground. Do you agree?

Rehman Hassan: I definitely think it’s a game changer. I got involved with the treaty process through the WHO Youth Council, where I represent an organisation [ACT4FOOD, a global youth-led movement to transform food systems] that primarily focuses on access to food, the social determinants of health and how we can promote change at the community level.

The text of the treaty spells out the efforts that need to be taken at a community level, and each member state has an obligation to make sure that the most vulnerable get access to support or care, as part of their pandemic response plans.

There is a commitment to early detection: if we can detect pandemics early, then we can ensure that everyone has access to the care and resources they need.

UN News: It’s likely that there will be another pandemic in our lifetimes. Will we manage it better than the last one?

Rehman Hassan: We’re definitely seeing an acceleration of pandemics and extreme events that ultimately undermine equity.

I think that the World Health Assembly and the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body for the pandemic treaty have done an incredible job of understanding what went wrong during the COVID-19 pandemic, and previous pandemics, and then looking at how we can craft an instrument that will address those inequities or prevent them from happening in the first place.

If member states deliver a meaningful treaty, I think it would significantly improve and facilitate a much better pandemic response than what we saw during last time.

Facebook losing ranking as ‘Top 10’ apps in US, BeReal in Top 5: Report

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Facebook, owned by Meta, has been loosing its rank among the Top 10 apps on the US App Store in 2022, said a report by TechCrunch.

An analysis of iPhone App Store data shows young consumers are easily shifting to newer social networks such as TikTok and now BeReal, leading to Facebook’s loss of its rank in the App Store’s Top Charts, said the report.

Last year, Facebook only fell out of the Top 10 free iPhone apps in the US seven times but in 2022, it has  already reached 97, indicating that Facebook may be losing ground fast as new apps push their way into the App Store’s top rankings.

Facebook’s app fell out of the App Store’s Top 10 apps just six times during the first half of 2021. In the first half of 2022, however, it has dropped out of this grouping a total of 59 times, per data provided to TechCrunch by app intelligence firm Sensor Tower.

It even once stayed out of the Top 10 for as long as 37 consecutive days in 2022, the firm noted, up from just two consecutive days in 2021.

Another analysis by data.ai, formerly App Annie, also reported similar findings but the number has been put at 4 times drop out of the Top 10 on iPhone in the US in 2021, compared with 110 days in 2022 so far.

April was Facebook’s worst month so far, as the app’s rank fell into the 30s on April 18, and then reached as low as No. 44 on April 21, when BeReal was climbing the App Store’s Top Charts, breaking into the Top 5.

As of now, BeReal is the No. 1 non-gaming app on the US App Store.

Smartphone tracking shows fear affects where youth spend time

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Youth spend less time in their neighborhoods if area residents have a high fear of crime, according to a new study that used smartphones to track kids’ whereabouts.

Researchers found that adolescents aged 11 to 17 spent over an hour less each day on average in their neighborhoods if residents there were very fearful, compared to kids from areas perceived as being safer. Higher fear of crime was linked to high-poverty neighborhoods.

This is the first study to use smartphone data to track a large, diverse sample of young people to determine where they spend their time, said Christopher Browning, lead author of the study and professor of sociology at The Ohio State University.

“It is clear that kids who live in high-poverty areas are spending less time in their neighborhoods and that is linked to a collective fear of crime,” Browning said.

“This has never been tested before with GPS data that tracks movements on a minute-by-minute basis.”

Browning presented the research Aug. 14 in Montreal at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.

This preliminary data is from the Adolescent Health and Development in Context study, which Browning leads. The study is examining the lives of 1,402 representative youths living in 184 neighborhoods in Franklin County, Ohio. This includes the city of Columbus and its suburbs.

In this study, which was conducted April 2014 to July 2016, participating adolescents were given a smartphone that they kept with them for one week. The GPS function on the phone reported their location every 30 seconds.

Overall, results showed youth spent an average of 52 percent of their waking time each day at home, 13 percent in their neighborhoods, and 35 percent outside of their neighborhoods. About 27 percent of the time when they were not at home while awake, they were in their neighborhoods.

All caregivers of youth in the study were asked to rate how afraid they were to walk in their neighborhood.

Results showed that caregivers’ ratings were only weakly connected to how much time their own children spent in the neighborhood. But the collective fear ratings of all the caregivers who lived in or regularly visited a neighborhood was strongly linked to the amount of time kids spent close to home.

“Once enough people stop spending time in a neighborhood because they are afraid, others will withdraw, whether they are afraid or not,” Browning said.

“If teens go to the local playground and there’s no one to play pickup basketball with, they will go outside the neighborhood to find their friends, or spend more time at home.”

The study looked at whether the presence or absence of amenities like schools, community centers and stores could explain why youth in high-poverty neighborhoods spent less time there. But this factor explained little when compared to the collective fear of crime.

“Many cities have social services like recreation centers that are targeted for disadvantaged neighborhoods,” Browning said.

“But our results suggest these amenities may be underutilized because young people are withdrawing from the neighborhood. Whether they are afraid to go there or just following their friends elsewhere, young people spend less time in disadvantaged neighborhoods.”

Upcoming studies using this same data set will examine whether kids in disadvantaged neighborhoods spend their extra time at home, or outside of their area.

Action plan for new generation of youths

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The Minister of State (I/C) for Youth Affairs and Sports Shri Vijay Goel said in the Rajya Sabha today that for unleashing the creative power and commitment of the new generation of youth, the Government has introduced the National Youth Policy, 2014 (NYP-2014). The vision of the Policy is “To empower youth of the country to achieve their full potential, and through them enable India to find its rightful place in the community of nations”. The policy lays down five well thought out objectives and 11 priority areas, namely, Education, Employment and Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, Health and Healthy Lifestyle, Sports, Promotion of Social Values, Community Engagement, Participation in politics and governance, Youth engagement, Inclusion and Social Justice.

In a written reply he said, the implementation of the Policy is the collective responsibility of all concerned Central Ministries/Departments, State Governments as well as other stakeholders. A number of Central Ministries/Departments, including the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, are implementing schemes/programmes having bearing on development and empowerment of youth in the 11 specified priority areas. The Department of Youth Affairs is playing the coordinating/ facilitating role, for implementation of the Policy, besides directly implementing some Schemes/ Programmes for development and empowerment of youth.

Compulsory Yoga/Games in high school level for holistic development of children

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The Minister of State (I/C) for Youth Affairs and Sports Shri Vijay Goel said in the Rajya Sabha today that education falls under the Concurrent List, majority of schools fall under State Examination Boards and the school curriculum is determined by the State Governments. However, the National Curriculum Framework 2005 recognizes the role of sports and physical education in the holistic development of children and youth in the country. As part of this policy, the Government has made access to play fields, equipment for sports & games and engagement of physical education instructor- a mandatory requirement for all schools under the Right to Education Act.

In a written reply he said, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) places special importance on co-scholastic areas which includes sports and physical fitness. Details of salient measures taken by CBSE to promote sports in schools are given in the Annexure. It is expected that State Education Boards would also emulate the CBSE example.

Annexure

Annexure referred to in reply to part (a) & (b) of the Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 2558 to be answered on 08.08.2017 regarding ‘Compulsory yoga/games in high school level’ by SHRI MOHD. ALI KHAN:

Salient steps taken to promote yoga/games/sports in the schools affiliated to CBSE are as

follows:

In classes VI-X any two activities out of the following are compulsory:

a. Sports/Indigenous sports (Kho-Kho etc.)

b. NCC/NSS

c . Scouting and Guiding

d. Swimming

e. Gymnastics

f. Yoga

g. First Aid

h. Gardening/Shramdaan

2. The Board has advised schools that there should be at least 40-45 minutes of physical Activities or Games period for Classes I-X every day. For Classes XI- XII schools should ensure that all the students participate in physical Activity / Games / Mass P.T. / Yoga with maximum health benefits for at least two period per week ( 90- 120 min week).

3. The Board also organizes ‘Inter school Sports and Games Competitions’ in as many as 24 disciplines at Cluster, Zone and National level. Over 1.5 lac students participate in it each year. In order to identify, recognize, nurture and develop the extraordinary talent among the students studying in class VIII onwards in sports and games, the Board provides Chacha Nehru Scholarship.

President Mukherjee Launches ‘100 Million for 100 Million’ Campaign on Birthday

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President of India Mr. Pranab Mukherjee marked his 81st birthday by launching a ‘100 Million for 100 Million’ Campaign organized by the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation at Rashtrapati Bhavan today (December 11, 2016).

Speaking on the occasion, the President said that he was delighted to launch the campaign led by Nobel peace prize winner, Shri Kailash Satyarthi, from Rashtrapati Bhavan, an institution which symbolises our Republic’s commitment to democracy, pluralism and secularism.

The President said that despite the progress the world has made in science and technology, economic development and in other fields of human endeavour, there are still over a 100 million children who are “out of school”. They are being denied their childhood and are facing exploitation in various ways. The world must realise without further delay that there can be no progress unless our children are safe, secure and unless they are provided the freedom and opportunity to become agents of change for the larger good of humanity. To ensure for them a bright, carefree and secure future, devoid of poverty, violence and want is our bounden duty.

The President said this global effort to mobilize 100 million youth for shaping a better future of 100 million children who are less privileged is the beginning of a change which was long overdue. It is only appropriate that this campaign begins from India, which has one of the largest populations of youth in the world. He expressed hope that the campaign, as it runs for five years, will have a path-breaking impact on the lives of children across the globe. He urged all children and young people from India and abroad to join this campaign and be the torchbearers for a vibrant, compassionate and happy world where every child is free from want, fear and exploitation.

The ‘100 Million for 100 Million’ Campaign aims to mobilise 100 million youth and children for 100 million underprivileged children across the world, to end child labour, child slavery, violence against children and promote the right of every child to be safe, free, and educated, over the next 5 years.

Earlier in the day, the President inaugurated twin tower apartments for staff of Rashtrapati Bhavan; Navachara-II, a hall for permanent exhibition of grassroots innovations at Rashtrapati Bhavan and a museum of vintage carpets & tapestries of Rashtrapati Bhavan.