Obesity and poor health conditions, not including stress, costs 103m work days or £21.5bn a year, says new 25-year study Eight in 10 British workers are overweight or living with long-term illnesses that limit their productivity, according to early findings of a 25-year study of people’s wellbeing. Poor health and obesity is costing the economy at least £21.5bn a year and will prove a severe drag on any recovery from the recession, the study suggests. Workers who are both overweight and have three or more health conditions – more than one in 10 of the total – are taking more than three weeks’ sick leave every year. The findings come ahead of publication due in October of an independent review of sickness absence, commissioned by the government. That review is expected to warn that growing numbers of workers are living with long-term conditions and need greater support to do so. According to the wellbeing study, based on an initial telephone interviews with almost 4,000 full-time workers, only 20% are not overweight and have no health conditions, ranging from high blood pressure to cancer. Another 20% have a weight problem but no health conditions. But six in 10 have at least one condition and 16%, almost one in six, have three or more. The study, by pollsters Gallup, is a 25-year collaboration with Healthways, an international wellbeing consultancy, in the UK, Germany and the US. Surveys in Britain began earlier this year and have so far involved almost 9,000 people in and out of employment. Dan Witters, Gallup principal and research director of the study, said: “Only one five British full-time workers are in optimal health. Because of this, they miss an estimated 103m days at work a year.” Ben Leedle, Healthways president and chief executive, said: “The implication of the chronic disease burden of the UK’s workforce is at alarming levels.” Gallup says the findings are a conservative estimate of productivity loss because they do not include part-time workers and take no account of “presenteeism” – people turning up to work when they are ill. Conditions counted in the survey include recurring back or knee pain as well as diagnosed depression. However, they do not include stress or anxiety, which are among the fastest growing causes of sickness absence. The international study has found that while obesity and most health conditions are more common in the US, Britain has the highest rate of asthma and a rate of depression 50% higher than in Germany. Health Obesity High blood pressure Work & careers Recession Cancer David Brindle guardian.co.uk
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Obesity and poor health conditions, not including stress, costs 103m work days or £21.5bn a year, says new 25-year study Eight in 10 British workers are overweight or living with long-term illnesses that limit their productivity, according to early findings of a 25-year study of people’s wellbeing. Poor health and obesity is costing the economy at least £21.5bn a year and will prove a severe drag on any recovery from the recession, the study suggests. Workers who are both overweight and have three or more health conditions – more than one in 10 of the total – are taking more than three weeks’ sick leave every year. The findings come ahead of publication due in October of an independent review of sickness absence, commissioned by the government. That review is expected to warn that growing numbers of workers are living with long-term conditions and need greater support to do so. According to the wellbeing study, based on an initial telephone interviews with almost 4,000 full-time workers, only 20% are not overweight and have no health conditions, ranging from high blood pressure to cancer. Another 20% have a weight problem but no health conditions. But six in 10 have at least one condition and 16%, almost one in six, have three or more. The study, by pollsters Gallup, is a 25-year collaboration with Healthways, an international wellbeing consultancy, in the UK, Germany and the US. Surveys in Britain began earlier this year and have so far involved almost 9,000 people in and out of employment. Dan Witters, Gallup principal and research director of the study, said: “Only one five British full-time workers are in optimal health. Because of this, they miss an estimated 103m days at work a year.” Ben Leedle, Healthways president and chief executive, said: “The implication of the chronic disease burden of the UK’s workforce is at alarming levels.” Gallup says the findings are a conservative estimate of productivity loss because they do not include part-time workers and take no account of “presenteeism” – people turning up to work when they are ill. Conditions counted in the survey include recurring back or knee pain as well as diagnosed depression. However, they do not include stress or anxiety, which are among the fastest growing causes of sickness absence. The international study has found that while obesity and most health conditions are more common in the US, Britain has the highest rate of asthma and a rate of depression 50% higher than in Germany. Health Obesity High blood pressure Work & careers Recession Cancer David Brindle guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Facebook flooded with campaigners’ requests for hard copies of information
September 29, 2011 No Comment
Reddit user group called How to annoy Facebook sets out to do just that after data sharing gives rise to fresh privacy concerns A community website appeared to have got the better of Facebook on Thursday after a guerilla campaign overloaded the social network with requests to send out hard copies of personal data it holds on its users. The campaign, blatantly called How to annoy Facebook , was started by a user on the social news site Reddit and quickly became the number three story in its “what’s hot” section. Under some data protection laws in Europe, Facebook has to send a hard copy – likely to be a CD – of your personal data. In the case of the UK and Ireland, it must send out a CD within 40 days. However, the group’s mischief may be somewhat stymied by the fact that Facebook does not have to supply the information in the format requested. The UK information commissioner’s office told the Guardian that Facebook could lawfully send out the data by email, or whichever format was the most convenient. The social network could even direct users to its “export your data” webpage if that satisfied the request. Facebook evidently has been flooded with requests — according to technology blog ZDNet , the company’s data access request team have been forced to send out emails telling users there will be a significant delay in getting their personal data out to them. The amount of data would include a user’s photo gallery, social calendar, wall posts and all other personal data such as date of birth. ZDNet reported that a typical personal data file will be a PDF that runs to more than 1,000 pages and more than 100MB in size. The watchdog website Europe vs Facebook received a 780-page personal information file – 34MB in size, roughly the same as eight MP3 music tracks – when it requested data from Facebook. Facebook had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication. The online campaign follows fresh privacy concerns about what data is held by Facebook after it launched features last week that automatically share what users are watching, reading and listening to on certain sites. Spotify attracted criticism for the changes, which meant that every song a user listened to was automatically shared on Facebook, unless the user explicitly opted out. The Anglo-Swedish streaming service on Thursday introduced a “private listening” feature in response to users who complained that they didn’t want Facebook friends being notified of every song they listened to. Daniel Ek, co-founder and chief executive of Spotify, announced the changes on Twitter . “We’re rolling out a new client as we speak where you can temporarily hide your guilty pleasures. It works like a browser’s private mode,” he tweeted . “We call it ‘private listening’ and you can find it in the Spotify/File menu and toggle it on/off.” Facebook Spotify Internet Social networking Digital media Lisa O’Carroll Josh Halliday guardian.co.uk
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Transport secretary to announce proposed increase in speed limit from 70mph to 80mph at Tory conference The government plans to raise the speed limit to 80mph from 70mph in a victory for the transport secretary, Philip Hammond. Hammond said on Thursday he will launch a consultation later this year with a view to introducing the new limit in 2013. The new policy is part of a determined bid to shift the government on to the side of the motorists after successive governments appeared keen to discourage driving. Hammond is expected to couple the increase with an expansion of 20mph limits in many urban areas. But the motorway proposal is expected to receive stiff opposition from road safety campaigners and environmentalists who point out that cars are far less fuel efficient at the higher speed. Hammond said: “Britain’s roads should be the arteries of a healthy economy and cars are a vital lifeline for many.” he blamed Labour’s “shortsighted and misguided war on the motorist” for penalising drivers. “This government has already scrapped the M4 bus lane, cut central government funding for money-making speed cameras and announced new measures to crack down on boy racers and reckless drivers while standing up for the decent majority,” he said. “Now it is time to put Britain back in the fast lane of global economies and look again at the motorway speed limit which is nearly 50 years old, and out of date thanks to huge advances in safety and motoring technology. “Increasing the motorway speed limit to 80mph would generate economic benefits of hundreds of millions of pounds through shorter journey times. So we will consult later this year on raising the limit to get Britain moving.” The existing 70mph limit was set in 1965. The government argues that cars are significantly safer since then, with a fall of 75% in the numbers of people killed every year on British roads since then. It insists road safety is still a top priority for the government. It also says that up to 49% of drivers are currently breaking the top speed limit. The change was due to be announced at the Tory party conference in Manchester this weekend but was brought forward after news leaked. Greenpeace’s senior transport campaigner Emma Gibson said: “The Saudi oil minister will rub his hands with glee when he learns of Philip Hammond’s decision. At a time when North Sea oil production is going down and we are ever more reliant upon unstable regimes and fragile environments to fuel our cars, the transport secretary’s decision will raise oil consumption and carbon emissions when we need to cut both.” The policy package represents the end of a drawn-out Whitehall battle with Hammond having to fend off the concerns of the climate change secretary, Chris Huhne, and the health secretary, Andrew Lansley. Huhne fought against it as the 10mph increase will see cars use more fuel and so increase pollution. Lansley’s department raised concerns it will see a rise in road casualties. It comes before a conference in which the Tories announce popular policies to remind activists of their own party’s instincts outside the coalition. Several welfare announcements are expected. Transport Road transport Transport policy Allegra Stratton guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The United States faces a “national crisis” thanks to ongoing high joblessness rates, Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke said Wednesday, in perhaps his most strongly worded effort yet to draw attention to the problem. “We’ve had close to 10 percent unemployment now for a number of years and, of the people who are unemployed, about
Continue reading …One of the “high-value” detainees imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay has been charged with planning the 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole in Yemen that killed 17 US sailors, reports the LA Times . Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a Saudi of Yemeni descent, faces the death penalty if convicted of…
Continue reading …An increase in solar activity is causing more spectacular displays of the northern—and southern—lights, as recently captured by the crew of the International Space Station. NASA has released rare footage of the Aurora Australis, or southern lights, taken by ISS astronauts as the station passed over the Indian…
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Elder sister, 16, jailed and younger sibling, 14, given rehabilitation order for involvement in family plot to steal money A 16-year-old girl has been jailed and her younger sister given a youth rehabilitation order for their part in a plot to kill their 89-year-old grandfather so they could steal his money. The elderly man, who suffered from dementia, was attacked with bricks at his bungalow in a village near Winchester, Hampshire. In the weeks before, some of those involved in the plot had researched how to kill him on the internet using Google searches such as “1,000 ways to die”, “poisonous toadstools” and “easiest way to kill an old person”. Last month, the elderly victim’s adopted daughter, 49, was jailed for 17 years and her son, 19, was given an indeterminate sentence in a young offenders’ institution after being found guilty of conspiracy to murder. The woman’s older daughter, 16, was also found guilty of conspiracy to murder and was given a 26-month youth detention order at Winchester crown court. Her younger sister, 14, was given a two-year youth rehabilitation order after she was convicted of wounding with intent, but was acquitted of the conspiracy charge. A third girl, aged 17 – the 19-year-old son’s girlfriend – was also found guilty of the conspiracy charge and sentenced to three years’ youth detention. The girls, sitting with social workers, sobbed as the sentences were handed down. Sentencing the two older girls, Mr Justice Foskett said: “The essence of the offence of which you were convicted is that you were prepared to contemplate the death of another individual. I cannot avoid a custodial sentence in your two cases.” Speaking to the younger sister, he said: “Despite your physical appearance, you are still very young and immature. I do not think the public interest calls for a custodial sentence in your case.” The judge described the three girls as “vulnerable” and under the influence of the mother, adding that they had acted out of fear of her. Sentencing the two adults last month, Foskett called the attack “despicable and inhuman”. He said the plot and the attempts to kill the pensioner, who lived with his wife, “will defy belief in the minds of any right-thinking person”. The family, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had launched a campaign to try to scare the OAP to death by smashing a window at his home and cutting the fuel line of his car to try to make it explode. During the six-week trial the jury was told the man was lured outside his home by his daughter pretending to have fallen over. He was knocked to the ground by her son and hit with bricks by the two young girls. The prosecution said the intention was to kill him for his money even though he had generously given cash for cars and horses for the family, which had been squandered. The man survived with cuts and bruises and was able to tell paramedics, who were called by his daughter, he had been hit. He is now in a residential home with his wife. The court heard that the daughter stopped the attack and tried to tell ambulance staff her father had fallen, but the family was arrested. Crime Youth justice Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
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David Simmonds battered Chinese-born economics graduate to death in woodlands near her workplace A 21-year-old man has admitted murdering an economics graduate who was battered to death in woodlands near her workplace. David Simmonds, of Heanor, Derbyshire, pleaded guilty at Nottingham crown court to the murder of 25-year-old Jia Ashton. The body of Chinese-born Ashton was discovered in Sleetmoor Woods, near Somercotes in Derbyshire, on 13 March, three days after she was last seen leaving her job at the chocolate-maker Thorntons. Detectives launched a high-priority inquiry after Ashton’s music teacher husband, Matthew, reported her missing on the evening of 11 March. She was eventually found by a mountain search and rescue dog in Sleetmoor Woods. Detectives think she would have been walking her usual route home down a road known locally as the Yellow Brick Road when she was attacked. Speaking at a media briefing earlier this week, Detective Superintendent Terry Branson said she was subjected to a sustained and brutal attack, in which there was no evidence of any weapons being used. Simmonds, at 1.88 metres (6ft 2in) and 120kg (19 stone), was more than three times the weight of Ashton, who stood at 1.5 metres, weighed 41kg and wore a size two shoe. Branson said: “Whilst I believe this may well have been a chance meeting in the woods on 10 March, thereafter what took place was not chance, not coincidental. “It was a sustained violent and brutal attack on a young woman, a result of which was that she did receive horrendous injuries to her head and significant compression to her chest, resulting in trauma to her heart, which was the cause of her death.” All her injuries were consistent with having been kicked and punched, he added, and there was no evidence of a sexual attack. She was found some distance from the site where detectives believe she was attacked but it is not clear if she ran there or was dragged. Branson said Ashton was last seen leaving Thorntons just after 5pm on 10 March before walking through the woods with her hood up and listening to an MP3 player. Her body was found about 500 metres from some of her belongings, which included her glasses, her music player and earphones, her mobile phone, which had been snapped in two, five buttons from her coat, and an umbrella cover. Her handbag was found around 4.5 metres up a tree close to her body. Detectives believe Simmonds scattered her belongings around the woods to conceal the crime. He also covered her body with various tree branches and logs. Fingerprints and DNA evidence were recovered from her glasses and her phone but Simmonds was not on any national databases so was not matched. He was eventually arrested on 5 May, eight weeks into the investigation, and charged with Ashton’s murder on 6 May after officers searched the local register of homeless people following accounts from witnesses a dishevelled and unkempt man in the woods around the time of the murder. Simmonds, who has a tattoo behind his right ear at the top of his neck, appeared in court wearing a brown long-sleeved shirt and dark jogging bottoms. Ashton’s husband, who was in court with his mother, Sue, stared at Simmonds as he was brought into the dock. Simmonds spoke only to confirm his name and was remanded in custody to appear at Nottingham crown court on 7 October for sentencing. Crime guardian.co.uk
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Doctors and nurses given up to 15 years in jail for treating people injured during uprising in Gulf kingdom Bahrain’s special security court has given lengthy jail terms to doctors and nurses who treated injured protesters during the uprising earlier this year, a lawyer said. The court, set up under emergency rule, also sentenced a protester to death for killing a police officer. Mohsen al-Alawi said the tribunal jailed 13 medical professionals for 15 years each. In addition, two doctors were sentenced to 10 years each while five other medics convicted on Thursday were given five years each. The harsh sentences suggest the Sunni authorities in the Gulf kingdom will not relent in punishing those they accuse of supporting the Shia-led opposition and joining protests. Earlier this year, the special court had sentenced two protesters to death for killing a police officer. Al-Alawi said all the defendants, who were charged with anti-state crimes, can appeal against the verdicts. A Bahraini rights group identified the protester sentenced to death as Ali Yousef Abdulwahab. The Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights said in a statement that another suspect, Ali Attia Mahdi, was convicted on Thursday as Abdulwahab’s accomplice and jailed for life. Hundreds of activists have been imprisoned since March when Bahrain’s rulers imposed martial law to deal with protests by the Shia majority demanding greater rights and freedoms. More than 30 people have been killed since protests began in February, inspired by Arab uprisings elsewhere. The Sunni monarchy responded with a violent crackdown in the strategically important Gulf nation, base for the US navy’s 5th Fleet. Thursday’s verdicts came a day after the tribunal upheld sentences for 21 activists convicted over the protests, including eight political figures who were given life terms on charges of trying to overthrow the monarchy. The sentences reflected the authorities’ unwillingness to cut punishments for those considered central to the uprising, although officials have taken some steps to ease tensions. They include releasing some detainees and reinstating state workers purged for suspected support of the protest movement. The doctors’ trial has been closely watched by rights groups, which have criticised Bahrain’s use of the security court, which has military prosecutors and civilian and military judges, in prosecuting civilians. Shias account for about 70% of Bahrain’s population of some 525,000 people, but claim they face deep-rooted discrimination such as being blocked from key government and security posts. The Sunni dynasty, which has ruled the island for more than 200 years, has retained crucial support from the west and Gulf Arab neighbours through the months of protests and crackdowns. Bahrain’s rulers invited a Saudi-led Gulf force to help them deal with the dissent. Sunni rulers of neighbours including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates fear that concessions to the protesters in Bahrain could widen the influence of Shia Iran. Bahrain Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Protest guardian.co.uk
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