There are a number of sporting events to enjoy from the comfort of your armchair this week with swimming from Manchester, golf from the US, and the marathon from London.

Clare Balding is at the MEN Arena for the Swimming World Championships (BBC Two, Wed to Sun), which started yesterday. More than 130 nations will be represented at the event with some of the world's best swimmers looking to get among the medals and earn a timely boost for their Olympic preparations.

To join Tiger Woods and all his fellow competitors make a date with the Golf – The Masters (BBC Two, Thurs to Sun) for live coverage from the famous Augusta National course, the first major on the 2008 golfing calendar.

After all the build-up, the moment of truth has arrived for the competitors as they step up to the opening tee on one of the world's most famous – and most intimidating – golf courses. Even four-time champion Tiger Woods has struggled to control the course.

With a session or two of armchair swimming and golf under your belt prepare yourself for some armchair running with the London Marathon (BBC One, Sun). More than 675,000 competitors have raised £315m for charity – a record £41.5m was raised at last year's event alone.

While the "fun runners" give the marathon its unique character, the race also boasts competitors of the highest calibre, and some of the world's leading distance runners will be in London to ramp up their preparations for the Beijing Olympics.

After all that exercise spare a thought for children who don't. One in four pre-school children is obese and with eight out of ten obese children growing into obese adults, things need to change.

In a new programme Too Fat To Toddle (ITV 1, Thurs) the focus is on four families with overweight children, to see if the problem can be nipped in the bud before it's too late at the first ever fat camp for under fives.

Maybe we're obsessed with our children. In Cotton Wool Kids (Channel 4, Thurs) we meet anxious parents, who fear that modern Britain has never been a more dangerous place for children.

But as some families go to increasingly extreme lengths to keep their children safe, this Cutting Edge documentary explores the effect it is having on modern childhood. Toni wants her children to be microchipped, so they can be tracked at all times. While at work, Jenny logs on to a nursery webcam to see how her little one is doing.

And to round off all this doom and gloom we can join journalist Peter Taylor in Age Of Terror (BBC Two, Tues) to explore four landmark terrorist attacks from the last 30 years. Combining interviews, archive footage and dramatic reconstructions, each programme explores an event, which has left its mark on history, politics and psychology. The series opens this week with the 1976 plane hijacking by Palestinians.