Tuesday, 07 October 2008
8.30pm

Risking Our Kids marks the beginning of ABC's new Future Makers series of documentaries.

Increasing childhood rates of diabetes, respiratory disease, behavioural disorders, obesity - and one in four children with mental health problems - lead former Australian of the Year, Fiona Stanley to warn that the next generation of Australians could have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. But this is 2008. Australia is awash with cash. Shouldn't our children be the healthiest kids in history? Child health expert, Professor Fiona Stanley believes they are not. Following Fiona Stanley and her team of scientists from their cutting edge laboratories to remote Aboriginal communities and into increasingly wealthy but unhealthy homes around Australia this film builds the case for what is being called the "the modernity paradox". Can it be that our contemporary western lifestyle is delivering a toxic physical and social environment in which children are growing up sick? After a lifetime of ground-breaking scientific study into the condition of the nation's children, Fiona Stanley passionately and eloquently explores the alarming, measurable health effects of the way we now bring up children. These are not problems without solutions, but, she says, effective action needs political and community will right now.