World Distribution of Obesity

According to an article in the Daily Mail,  people living in the US are, on average, the fattest people in the world. No surprises there then. American men and women reportedly have an average bmi of over 28, according to figures from the World Health Organisation. This is regarded as overweight, and for the average of the country to be this low is extremely worrying. Even Britain isn't that far behind, with an average of around 27, and that our women are on average the fattest in western Europe.
The graphs below show the world distribution of obesity, with the darker the colour, the fatter the country on average is:

As expected, lots of the more developed countries have high bmis, but there also some exceptions in north africa and south america. bmi of course, cannot always be trusted however, as muscle isn't taken into consideration.
Obesity brings with it all sorts of health risks, such as high cholesterol, blood pressure, and diabetes, which is why it needs to be taken seriously as increasing amounts of people are putting themselves in serious data.

Migration.

Migration. Movement, essentially. Most commonly used in conjunction with the movement of people, but migration also occurs with:

• Animals, such as;

Disloyal Order Of Water Buffaloes

• Meanders;

Little Meander of a river

In the UK, since the relaxation of movement within the EU, we have seen an increased number of Eastern European migrants coming to reside in our country. Because what the migrants earn back home is so little, employers can get away with paying Polish and other Eastern European workers less than they would for a British worker, as they are still being paid more than they would be at home and are happy to work for these wages. Because of this, many British people claim that polish migrants are stealing all our jobs. Many of the jobs these migrants occupy however, are often ones which British people refuse to do anyway, and that the migrants are often benefitting our economy, not to mention their positive impact on our ageing population structure. And I really wish there were a way of changing the language on Safari from "English US" (which doesn't even exist; if you want to speak our language, do it properly) to "English UK". The inappropriately placed red lines where Americans can't spell is really beginning to annoying me. And now that little distraction has meant I can use "however" again; I feared using it in two consecutive sentences would look a bit silly. (anyway, back on track) However, there is some evidence to support claims that polish migrants are in fact stealing our jobs. If you take the case study of a particular restaurant chain (which will not be named here for legal reasons), there is evidence of discrimination against caucasian british workers, with increased levels of polish workers being employed due to a particular manager high up the food chain with polish connections providing jobs, and not just the scummy jobs that no one here wants to do, for friends in Poland when they come over, even mistreating existing British workers so that they resign and make more vacancies for their polish friends. So things are never as they quite seem with migration, and there are always more than one side to the story. So don't necessarily believe all that the Daily Mail tells you - or in this case maybe even your geography teacher. 

Philoso-active: Aristotle believed that the prime mover was Lewis!...

Philoso-active: Aristotle believed that the prime mover was Lewis!...: "Aristotle believed that the prime mover was Lewis!"

yes, yes he did.

(and if this comes out in times new roman i'll go scitz)

edit: but, it appears it hasn't so, all is well. :)

just a spot of lite reading for you all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_communication 



enjoy. :)

Ageing populations and pro-natal policies

Ageing populations is one of the most pressing demographic challenges for many MEDCs today, because of the socio-economic pressures the unbalanced population structure puts on the country, which I feel like I have spent half my life writing about. 

In the UK, whilst we do have an ageing population, which we most certainly need to address, a recent article in the telegraph points out that we are actually ageing slower than most of the rest of Europe. For example, it states that countries like Germany and Italy have around 20% of the population being over 65 and of retirement age, compared to just 16% in the UK. Japan however, has 22% of its population over 65 years of age, which is starting to cause the country real issues, hence why they have introduced pro-natal policies to try and increase the fertility rate and balance the population and dependency ratio, which the following video i made explores:

Another take on Britain's ageing population

Hello all, just thought I'd share with you a thrilling article concerning ageing populations I came across the other day. It's by Esther Boserup Rantzen concerning the retirement age for women, particularly in the television presenting sector. She expresses that she is tired of the elderly being seen as a burden on young people and the NHS, and goes on to argue that in fact elderly people do contribute to the economy and general well-being of the country, pointing out that it is in fact old people who allow many of their sons and daughters to work by looking after their grandchildren; which if was left solely to the parents, they wouldn't be able to have such demanding but rewarding careers and would instead have to stay at home looking after the kids. It is also retired volunteers who keep charitable organisations running, and she even uses the example that the "ablest monarch in the world" is our majesty the queen, currently at 84 years of age and still going strong.

Whilst not all the article is necessarily relevant to our ageing population (despite being one of the top results on google news), I urge you to take some time to read the rest of it, as it really is a very interesting and insightful read, which we have come to expect from papers such as the Daily Mail, the respectable publication that it is. :')

Esther's Daily Mail Article on ageing population

Bill Gates: cutting deaths, cutting births.

Bill Gates is known to be a big contributor to aid in less economically developed countries, and uses his wealth to help poor children live better lives. In a recent publicity statement, he has been promoting the amazing effects of child vaccination against deadly diseases from which thousands die unnecessarily from each year, but more relevantly the affect this has on population growth, and consequentially the country's economic development as a whole. Demographers argue that decreasing the amount of child deaths, instead of increasing population growth, actually slows it down. Because more children will survive, it puts less pressure on couples to have large families to ensure that enough of them survive to look after them in the future, and therefore allows them to have fewer children. It also means the family has more money to spend on those children, which increases their chances of being educated and getting a decent job when they grow up. So Mr Gates is absolutely right to try to improve the health care of children in developing countries, not just because of the obvious saving lives, but also because the knock-on effect on the country's population as a whole is a huge step forward in advancing through the demographic stages and become more developed.