Robbie Williams (no, not that one) is a researcher on the BBC's ambitious new health programme Fat Nation - The Big Challenge, a two-year campaign which aims to turn around the lives of 200 residents in a Handsworth Wood neighbourhood. An estimated two-thirds of adults in Britain are overweight or obese, while the figure for children is around 20 per cent.
 The nine-week series, which begins September 9, will examine the diets and lifestyles of the Brummies in a bid to help them lose weight and get healthier. Robbie, 28, who has worked at BBC Birmingham for the last three years, runs through what makes up an average day working on Fat Nation: 9.30am: Report for work at the world famous(!) Pebble Mill in Birmingham. Despite being a London production, Fat Nation: The Big Challenge is based up here as our featured street is in Handsworth Wood. With most everyone now based at The Mailbox, it's strange not seeing all the old familiar faces as I walk through reception and up to our office. Oops, did I say office? I meant canteen. First job is always to trawl through emails and phone calls received and respond to them all. 10am: As a part of the Live Events team, it's our responsibility to come up with and develop exciting and interesting ideas that will feature throughout the series. We hold many brainstorm meetings to come up with ideas for our items and despite what you may have heard, they don't all start off with a silly title that we then expand upon. Just most of them. Noon: It's a constant hive of activity in the office and today even more so as we are shooting some scenes for the opening titles later on and therefore have our talent up from London. Amongst the experts is nutritionist Vicky Edgson, affectionately known to the production team as Miss Chiplash. 2pm: More phone bashing in an attempt to set up the items discussed at our brainstorm sessions and production meetings. Currently a skipping item for programme two - just taken delivery of a box load of ropes for our contributors to use (not that they know about this yet!) As one of our many items on the series, we're going to show the public just how beneficial skipping can be. A survey has shown that a ten-minute skipping session can burn the same amount of calories as a 45 minute run! Fellas - if you're not convinced, boxers swear by it! 4pm: Off to the street to collect some pedometer information from our contributors. We've distributed them to the entire street and asked everyone to wear them for a week to get a general idea of how active they are at work and in their general lives. The average total of steps people should be taking in a day is 10,000. Now that may sound a lot but it is achievable. 6.30pm: Titles shoot on the street. I just hope as you all watch our beautiful titles you take a second to think about how wet it was tonight. Very, very wet. Still, the shots looked great and are a more than suitable opening to such a fine TV programme. (BBC1, immediately after EastEnders, 8pm-9pm on Thursdays, since you asked). | 
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