“Uh-oh, I can’t see any chippies around here,” says contestant Russell on the first episode of Channel 4’s controversial new travel for weight loss series Around the World in 80 Weighs. Russell, 36 and from Kent, is gazing out from his seat on a luxury coach into the neat suburbs of Tokyo – the capital of a nation with an obesity rate of 4 per cent, compared with Britain’s 25 per cent.
When my friend and colleague, Mandy Sanghera – the British-Indian human rights activist –called to ask whether I wanted to co-lead a grassroots team to rescue women from Afghanistan, I said, “I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for decades.” Together, our team rescued 400 Afghan women in 2021. I’ve taken personal responsibility for a brilliant young Afghan woman who is now flourishing in graduate school in America.