Category Archives: health
Obesity Levels Could Be Cut With 20% Fat Tax
9:13am UK, Wednesday May 16, 2012
A 20% “fat tax” on unhealthy food and drink could help cut the number of people suffering from obesity and heart disease.
Such a move should be combined with subsidies on healthy foods such as fruit and vegetables, academics from bmj.com said.
The group released their findings ahead of the 65th World Health Assembly in Geneva where prevention and control of non-communicable diseases will be key issues for discussion.
A glimpse of the unseen absolute poverty in 21st century UK
Most people are completely unaware of the extent to which there is poverty today
Posted on by Vicki Fitzgerald
With thanks to Rhiannon Lockley who wrote this blog for us. Rhiannon is West mids regional women’s officer for UCU.
“We were really struggling. It really did get to the point where we just didn’t know how we were going to cope. It was literally pick one thing and do that, a case of either stay warm or eat.”
(Michaela, a Birmingham mother helped by Gateway Family Services Pregnancy Outreach Team, talks to ITV news, Wednesday 11th April 2012)
Usually when people talk about poverty in the UK they are referring to relative poverty. A person classed as relatively impoverished is significantly below average in wealth, meaning they are economically unable to participate fully in society. High levels of relative poverty indicate high levels of social inequality, which as has been argued in Wilkinson and Pickett’s 2009 book The Spirit Level are linked to a variety of negative problems in society. Relative poverty impacts on things like physical health, mental well-being, educational and career opportunities.
WHO calls for a rethink of conventional definitions of what it means to be ‘old’
Good health adds life to years
Edited by Jane Hill editor@wellbeingnorfolk.co.uk
On World Health Day [7 April], the World Health Organization [WHO] is calling for urgent action to ensure that, at a time when the world’s population is ageing rapidly, people reach old age in the best possible health.
In the next few years, for the first time, there will be more people in the world aged over 60 than children aged less than five. By 2050, 80 per cent of the world’s older people will be living in low– and middle–income countries.
The main health challenges for older people everywhere are non–communicable diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and lung disease.
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