Daily roundup 20 November: Children in Need, child obesity, and RSE

BBC Children in Need raised a record-breaking £50.1m to fund good causes for children and young people. The BBC reports that Friday night's five-hour programme, which featured a host of celebrities and videos of how the funding raised supports projects, surpassed 2016's previous on-the-night record of £46.6m.


Surgeons are performing hip replacements on children as young as 10 because of the damage caused by obesity, new figures show. The Telegraph reports that in the past three years, 10 children aged 10 to 19 have had hip replacements due to excess weight. The total number of obese people needing joint replacements has risen by almost 60 per cent in that time, data from NHS Digital shows.


Sex education may need to become more graphic because teenagers are increasingly experimenting with taboo practices, a new study has warned. The Telegraph reports that researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and University College London have been monitoring changing sexual practices since 1990. They found that the number of 16- to 24-year-olds moving away from "traditional sexual intercourse" has doubled, with experts claiming access to pornography online was partly behind this.


Concerns have been raised that children as young as 12 are being sold for sex in a deprived area of Glasgow. The Metro reports that police in Govanhill are to investigate claims by local people that they have been offered Roma children for sex or been approached outside bars by young people themselves.


Divorcing parents could lose custody or be denied contact with their children if they attempt to turn a child against their former partner, under the rules of a new pilot scheme. The Independent reports that the "groundbreaking" initiative, being trialled by the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), is designed to tackle the problem officially known as "parental alienation", where one parent turns a child against the other so they do not want to see them.


Physical punishment of children has no place in a modern and progressive nation, Welsh minister for children Huw Irranca-Davies has said. Wales Online reports that, speaking on Universal Children's Day, the minister said he was working to take forward the Welsh government's plans to introduce legislation to remove the defence of reasonable punishment. If passed by the National Assembly, it will mean that smacking in Wales will become illegal.