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Eight in 10 middle-aged Britons 'are overweight or exercise too little' Public Health England launches campaign aimed at 40 to 60-year-olds, 83% of whom weigh too much or drink above guidelines Eight out of 10 of middle-aged people in the UK weigh too much, drink too much or do not exercise enough, analysis from Public Health England (PHE) shows. Modern life is harming the health of the nation, according to the organisation, which has launched a campaign, One You, aimed at the 83% of 40 to 60-year-olds – 87% of men and 79% of women in this age bracket – who are overweight or obese, exceed the chief medical officer’s alcohol guidelines or are physically inactive. Obesity is one of the biggest problems for this group: 77% of men and 63% of women in middle age are overweight or obese. Obesity in adults has risen by 16% in the past 20 years. Research shows that many people cannot identify a healthy body, suggesting being overweight has become the new normal. Prof Sir...

Mathematical formula finds the number one song to listen to 'if you wanna have a good time' A mathematical formula has been created to discover the number one song that will really make you happy - and it's not by Pharrell Williams. Queen's hit, Don't Stop Me Now, topped the charts after expert in cognitive neuroscience and emotion, Dr Jacob Jolij, sifted through 126 songs from the last 50 years. He then combined the songs with feedback from Brits to analyse why certain tunes make people happy and even developed a mind bending equation to go along with it. The formula is as follows - FGI= ?L postivie / (BPM-150) +(K-[1/3+?,1/3,1/3-?])+1. Boffins from tech brand Alba teamed up with Dr Jolij and found that more than three quarters (78 per cent) of Brits used music to lift their mood and close to six in ten (54 per cent) using it to motivate them. The research found that people in Norwich (76 per cent) and Newcastle (74 per cent) are least likely to be influen...

Source:   Nathan Dumlao en Unsplash Vegetarian diet could cut early death risk A vegetarian diet could be the key to living a longer and healthier life, according to new research Experts claim that cutting meat from the daily intake may be all that is needed to slash the risk of heart disease and early death. A study showed that vegetarians were less likely to have died than meat-eaters when checked several years later. The latest research analysing the lives of more than 70,000 people revealed that those who shun meat and fish completely had the best lifespan benefits. The researchers from Loma Linda University in California showed that vegetarian diets were associated with lower death rates, with more favour­able results for men than women. As a whole, the vegetarians studied were 12 per cent less likely to have died during a six-year follow-up period than their meat-eating peers, according to the study published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. Led by Dr Mic...

Source: Erica Magugliani on Unsplash Pet poll reveals owners' devotion Many UK pet owners prefer to hug their animals (1) than a close relative when feeling low, a poll for a social networking website suggests. Half of the 1,124 people quizzed for My Social Petwork said they acted in (2) a way and a third said they spend (3) to 30 days a year caring for their pets. One in five has cancelled social plans to be with their pet, March's survey conducted by OpinionMatters found. The website described (4) survey as the "UK's first pet census". The survey suggested that one in five pet owners regularly uses social networking sites Facebook or Twitter to share pet images, and 10% of people have taken their pet to occasions such as christenings or weddings. 'Healthy and happy' About 7% of owners have cancelled a date and 4% have called in sick to work (5) of their pets, the survey said. A quarter of UK pet owners said their pet was...

1.6m people aged 20-40 'living with parents' More than 1.6 million people aged 20-40 are still living with their parents because they cannot afford their own home, a report suggests. More than 5,000 people were surveyed by YouGov for housing charity Shelter. Source: BBC News        listen to ‘Back home with Mam and Dad’ on Audioboo    Vocabulary :   to afford -   to survey -   according to... -   to save up for stg -   a deposit -   the housing ladder -   to put the brakes on -   a lack of stg  -   the root of the problem -   grateful (adj) -   the norm -   to soar -   out of reach -   affordable (adj) -   to get on in life -   a survey -   to be faced with ... -   barely (adv) -   huge (adj) -   a mortgage -   to struggle - ...

Couples who share the housework are more likely to divorce, study finds Divorce rates are far higher among “modern” couples who share the housework than in those where the woman does the lion’s share of the chores, a Norwegian study has found. In what appears to be a slap in the face for gender equality, the report found the divorce rate among couples who shared housework equally was around 50 per cent higher than among those where the woman did most of the work. “What we’ve seen is that sharing equal responsibility for work in the home doesn’t necessarily contribute to contentment,” said Thomas Hansen, co-author of the study entitled “Equality in the Home”.  The lack of correlation between equality at home and quality of life was surprising, the researcher said.  “One would think that break-ups would occur more often in families with less equality at home, but our statistics show the opposite,” he said.  The figures clearly show that “the more a man does in...