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Hotel booking sites actually make it hard to get cheap deals, but there’s a way around it

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/peter-martin-682709">Peter Martin</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/crawford-school-of-public-policy-australian-national-university-3292">Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University</a> Booking a place to stay on holidays has become a reflex action. The first thing many of us do is open a site such as <a href="https://www.wotif.com/">Wotif</a>, <a href="https://au.hotels.com/?locale=en_AU">Hotels.com</a> or <a href="https://www.trivago.com.au/">trivago</a> (all of which are these days owned by the US firm <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-will-not-oppose-expedia%E2%80%99s-proposed-acquisition-of-wotif">Expedia</a>), or their only big competitor, <a href="https://www.booking.com/">Booking.com</a> from the Netherlands. Checking what rooms are available – anywhere – is wonderfully easy, as is booking, at what usually seems to be the lowest available price. But Australia’s Assistant Competition Minister Andrew Leigh is concerned there might be a reason the price seems to be the lowest available. It might be an <a href="https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/andrew-leigh-2022/media-releases/supporting-tourism-and-accommodation-providers-set-their">agreement not to compete</a>, or the fear of reprisals against hotel owners who offer better prices. <h2>Agreements to not compete</h2> Leigh has asked the treasury to investigate, and if that’s what it finds, it may be the booking sites have the perverse effect of keeping prices high, especially when the substantial fees they charge hotels are taken into account. For now, the treasury is seeking information. It has set a deadline of <a href="https://treasury.gov.au/consultation/c2022-338978">January 6</a> for hotel operators and booking sites to tell it: <ul> <li> the typical fees charged by online booking platforms </li> <li> the details of any agreements not to compete on price </li> <li> whether hotels that try to compete get ranked lower on booking sites. </li> </ul> What’s likely to come out of it is a ban on so-called price-parity clauses that prevent discounting, or a ban on “algorithmic punishment,” whereby hotels that do discount get pushed way down the rankings on the sites. But in the meantime, there are things we can do to get better prices, and they’ll help more broadly, as I’ll explain. <h2>Flight Centre precedent</h2> <figure class="align-right zoomable"></figure> Back in 2018, in a case that went all the way to the High Court, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) forced <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/flight-centre-ordered-to-pay-125-million-in-penalties">Flight Centre</a> to pay a penalty of A$12.5 million for attempting to induce airlines not to undercut it on ticket prices. That the ACCC eventually won the case might be an indication price-parity clauses are already illegal under Australian law. But it’s a difficult law to enforce. This is why the treasury is considering special legislation of the kind in force in France, Austria, Italy and Belgium. The ACCC has known for some time that Expedia and Booking.com have included clauses in their contracts preventing hotels offering the same room for any less than they do, even directly. Rather than take the big two to court, in 2016 the ACCC “reached agreement” with them to delete the clauses that prevented hotels offering better deals <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/expedia-and-bookingcom-agree-to-reinvigorate-price-competition-by-amending-contracts-with-australian-hotels">face-to-face</a>. <h2>The concession that conceded little</h2> From then on, hotels were able to offer better deals than the sites over the phone or in person, but not on their own websites. Given we are less and less likely to walk in off the street or even use the phone to book a hotel, it wasn’t much of a concession. Then, in 2019, with the Commission under renewed pressure from hotel owners for another investigation, Expedia (but not Booking.com) reportedly <a href="https://www.smartcompany.com.au/business-advice/competition/expedia-allow-hotels-undercut-prices-online/">waived</a> the rest of the clauses, giving hotel owners the apparent freedom to advertise cheaper prices wherever they liked including on their own sites without fear of retribution. Except several appear to fear retribution, and very few seem to have jumped at the opportunity. <h2>Algorithmic punishment</h2> An Expedia spokesman gave an indication of what might be in store when he was quoted as saying a hotel that undercut Expedia might “find itself ranked <a href="https://www.smartcompany.com.au/business-advice/competition/expedia-allow-hotels-undercut-prices-online/">below its competitors</a>, just as it would if it had worse reviews or fewer high-quality pictures of its property”. Being ranked at the bottom of a site is much the same as not being ranked at all, something Leigh refers to as “algorithmic punishment”. It’s not at all clear the present law prevents it, which is why Leigh is open to the idea of legislating against it. Although you and I may not often think about what hotels are paying to be booked through sites such as Wotif and Booking.com, and although what’s charged to the hotel isn’t publicised, it appeard to be a large chunk of the cost of providing the room. One figure quoted is <a href="https://www.smartcompany.com.au/industries/tourism/online-travel-booking-fed-up-small-businesses-call-accc-action/">20%</a>. Leigh says hotel owners have told him the fees are in the “<a href="https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/andrew-leigh-2022/transcripts/interview-geraldine-doogue-abc-saturday-extra">double digits</a>”, something he says is quite a lot when you consider the sites don’t need to clean the toilets, change the sheets or help on the front desk. <h2>‘Chokepoint capitalism’</h2> What this seems to mean (the treasury will find out) is almost all bookings are more expensive than they need to be because firms that sit at the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/chokepoint-capitalism-why-well-all-lose-unless-we-stop-amazon-spotify-and-other-platforms-squeezing-cash-from-creators-194069">chokepoint</a>” between buyers and sellers are squeezing sellers. A hotel could always abandon the sites and offer much cheaper prices, but for a while – perhaps forever – it will be much harder to find. In their defence, the operators of the platforms might say they need to get the best offers from hotels in order to make it worthwhile for the operators to invest in their sites, an argument the treasury is inviting them to put. In the meantime, with some hotels reluctant to put their best rates on their websites, but with them perfectly able to offer better rates over the phone, there’s a fairly simple way we can all get a better deal – and help fix the broader problem by weight of numbers. If we look up the best deal wherever we want online, and then phone and ask for a better one (or a better room), we might well find we get it. We might be saving the owner a lot of money. Leigh reckons the more we do ring up, the more the sites might feel pressure to discount their own fees, helping bring prices down even before he starts to think about writing legislation.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196460/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/peter-martin-682709">Peter Martin</a>, Visiting Fellow, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/crawford-school-of-public-policy-australian-national-university-3292">Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/hotel-booking-sites-actually-make-it-hard-to-get-cheap-deals-but-theres-a-way-around-it-196460">original article</a>. </div>

Travel Trouble

Fasting, eating earlier in the day or eating fewer meals – what works best for weight loss?

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/hayley-oneill-1458016">Hayley O'Neill</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/bond-university-863">Bond University</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/loai-albarqouni-452476">Loai Albarqouni</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/bond-university-863">Bond University</a> Globally, <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight">one in eight people</a> are living with obesity. This is an issue because <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/risk-factors/risk-factors-to-health/contents/overweight-and-obesity">excess fat</a> <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27423262/">increases the risk</a> of type 2 diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33393504/">Modifying your diet</a> is important for managing obesity and preventing weight gain. This might include reducing your calorie intake, changing your <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39143663/">eating patterns</a> and prioritising healthy food. But is one formula for weight loss more likely to result in success than another? Our <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11530941/">new research</a> compared three weight-loss methods, to see if one delivered more weight loss than the others: <ul> <li>altering calorie distribution – eating more calories earlier rather than later in the day</li> <li>eating fewer meals</li> <li>intermittent fasting.</li> </ul> We analysed data from 29 clinical trials involving almost 2,500 people. We found that over 12 weeks or more, the three methods resulted in similar weight loss: 1.4–1.8kg. So if you do want to lose weight, choose a method that works best for you and your lifestyle. <h2>Eating earlier in the day</h2> When our metabolism <a href="https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/metabolic-syndrome">isn’t functioning properly</a>, our body can’t respond to the hormone insulin properly. This can lead to weight gain, fatigue and can increase the risk of a number of chronic diseases such as diabetes. Eating later in the day – with a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23512957/">heavy dinner</a> and late-night snacking – seems to lead to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33172509/">worse metabolic function</a>. This means the body becomes less efficient at converting food into energy, managing blood sugar and regulating fat storage. In contrast, consuming calories <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31151228/">earlier</a> in the day appears to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29754952/">improve</a> metabolic function. However, this might not be the case for everyone. Some people naturally have an evening “chronotype”, meaning they wake up and stay up later. People with this chronotype appear to have <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36803075/">less success losing weight</a>, no matter the method. This is due to a combination of factors including genes, an increased likelihood to have a poorer diet overall and higher levels of hunger hormones. <h2>Eating fewer meals</h2> <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30700403/">Skipping breakfast</a> is common, but does it hinder weight loss? Or is a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28967343/">larger breakfast and smaller dinner</a> ideal? While <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28137935/">frequent meals</a> may reduce disease risk, recent studies suggest that compared to eating one to two meals a day, eating six times a day might increase <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32437566/">weight loss success</a>. However, this doesn’t reflect the broader research, which tends to show consuming <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33485709/">fewer meals</a> can lead to greater weight loss. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39485353/">Our research</a> suggests three meals a day is better than six. The easiest way to do this is by cutting out snacks and keeping breakfast, lunch and dinner. Most studies compare three versus six meals, with limited evidence on whether <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7490164/">two meals is better than three</a>. However, <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11530941/">front-loading your calories</a> (consuming most of your calories between breakfast and lunch) appears to be better for weight loss and may also help <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9605877/">reduce hunger</a> across the day. But more studies with a longer duration are needed. <h2>Fasting, or time-restricted eating</h2> Many of us eat over a period of more than <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26411343/">14 hours a day</a>. Eating late at night <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26411343/">can throw off</a> your body’s natural rhythm and alter how your organs function. Over time, this can increase your risk of type 2 diabetes and other chronic diseases, particularly among <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8617838/">shift workers</a>. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35194176/">Time-restricted eating</a>, a form of intermittent fasting, means eating all your calories within a <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7262456/">six- to ten-hour window</a> during the day when you’re most active. It’s not about changing what or how much you eat, but <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7262456/">when you eat it</a>. <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7262456/">Animal studies</a> suggest time-restricted eating can lead to weight loss and improved metabolism. But the evidence in humans is still limited, especially about the long-term benefits. It’s also unclear if the benefits of time-restricted eating are due to the timing itself or because people are eating less overall. When we looked at studies where participants ate freely (with no intentional calorie limits) but followed an eight-hour daily eating window, they naturally consumed about 200 fewer calories per day. <h2>What will work for you?</h2> In the past, clinicians have thought about weight loss and avoiding weight gain as a simile equation of calories in and out. But factors such as how we distribute our calories across the day, how often we eat and whether we eat late at night may also impact our metabolism, weight and health. There are no easy ways to lose weight. So choose a method, or combination of methods, that suits you best. You might consider <ul> <li>aiming to eat in an eight-hour window</li> <li>consuming your calories earlier, by focusing on breakfast and lunch</li> <li>opting for three meals a day, instead of six.</li> </ul> The <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13679-024-00555-2">average adult gains 0.4 to 0.7 kg per year</a>. Improving the quality of your diet is important to prevent this weight gain and the strategies above might also help. Finally, there’s still a lot we don’t know about these eating patterns. Many existing studies are short-term, with small sample sizes and varied methods, making it hard to make direct comparisons. More research is underway, including well-controlled trials with larger samples, diverse populations and consistent methods. So hopefully future research will help us better understand how altering our eating patterns can result in better health.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/242028/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/hayley-oneill-1458016">Hayley O'Neill</a>, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/bond-university-863">Bond University</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/loai-albarqouni-452476">Loai Albarqouni</a>, Assistant Professor | NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/bond-university-863">Bond University</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/fasting-eating-earlier-in-the-day-or-eating-fewer-meals-what-works-best-for-weight-loss-242028">original article</a>. </div>

Body

I spoke to 100 Japanese seniors, and learnt the secret to a good retirement is a good working life

<div class="theconversation-article-body"> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/shiori-shakuto-1537774">Shiori Shakuto</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-sydney-841">University of Sydney</a> What makes a good retirement? I’ve <a href="https://www.pennpress.org/9781512827088/after-work/">been researching</a> the lives of “silver backpackers”: Japanese seniors who embark on a later-life journey of self-discovery. Many experienced Japan’s high-growth economy, characterised by rigid gender roles. For many men who worked as iconic cultural figures of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaryman">sarariiman</a> (white collar workers), excessive working hours were normalised and expected. Their absence from home was compensated by their female partners, many full-time stay-at-home mothers. Entering their 60s meant either retirement from work, or children leaving home. For men and women, retirement is understood as an opportunity to live a life for themselves, leading to a journey of self-discovery. <h2>Dedicating life to work</h2> I interviewed more than 100 older Japanese women and men and found a significant disparity in the quality of life between them. Japanese retired men who led a work-oriented life struggled to find meaning at the initial stages of retirement. One man I spoke to retired at the age of 60 from a large trading company. He was a successful businessman, having travelled the world and held various managerial positions in the company. His wife looked after the children most of the time. They bought a house with a yard in a suburb so the children could attend a good school. It significantly increased his commute, and further reduced his time with children. He also worked on weekends. He barely had time to develop his hobbies or get to know his neighbours. He idealised his retirement as a time to finally spend with his family and develop his own hobbies. When he retired, however, he realised that he and his family didn’t have any common topics of conversation. Through decades of excessive hours spent at work away from home, the rest of the family established a routine that did not include him. Taking up new hobbies at the age of 60 was not as easy as he thought, nor was making new friends at this age. “I became a nureochiba,” he lamented. Nureochiba refers to the wet fallen leaves that linger and are difficult to get rid of. The term is commonly used to describe retired men with no friends or hobbies who constantly accompany their wives. The retirement for many former sarariiman was characterised by boredom – having nowhere to go to or having nothing to do. The sense of boredom led to a sense of isolation and low confidence in old age. Many older Japanese men I spoke to lament not having built a connection with their children or communities at a younger age. <h2>Dedicating life to family and community</h2> Older Japanese women I spoke with were more well-connected with their children and local communities in later life. Many were in regular contact with their children through visits, phone calls and messages. Some continued to care for them by providing food or by looking after grandchildren. Children very much appreciated them. Many older women who had been full-time stay-at-home mothers had already taken up hobbies or volunteering activities at community organisations, and they could accelerate these involvements in their old age. Even women who worked full-time seemed to maintain better connections with their family members because working excessively away from home was simply not possible for them. Older men relied on these women’s networks and activities conducted at the scales of home and communities – from caring for others to pursuing hobbies – to enact a meaningful retirement. The sense of connection with family and communities, not to mention their husbands’ reliance on them, led to a high confidence and wellbeing among older women. I saw many instances where older women preferred spending time with their female friends than their retired husbands and embarked on adventurous trips alone. One woman went on a three-month cruise alone. Feeling liberated, she sent a fax message to her husband from the ship: “When I get off this ship, I will devote the rest of my life to myself. You will have to take care of your own mother.” Upon disembarking, she moved to Malaysia to start her second life. <h2>The silver backpackers</h2> Malaysia has become a popular destination for silver backpackers looking to embark on a journey of self-discovery. Some travel as couples, while others go alone, regardless of their marital status. For many male silver backpackers I spoke to, moving to Malaysia offers a second chance at life to make new friends, find hobbies and, most importantly, start anew with their partners. For many female silver backpackers, visiting Malaysia means being able to enjoy an independent lifestyle while having the security of friends and family in Malaysia and Japan. The experiences of older Japanese men and women can be translated into the experiences of anyone who spent excessive hours at work and those who spent more time cultivating relationships outside of work. The activities of the latter group are not as valued in a society that narrowly defines productivity. However, my research shows that it is their activities that carry more value in old age. Are you under pressure to work long hours? If you can, turn off your phone and computer. Instead of organising events for work, organise a dinner with your family and friends. Take up a new hobby in your local community centres. You can change how you work and live now for a better old age.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/238571/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/shiori-shakuto-1537774">Shiori Shakuto</a>, Lecturer in Anthropology, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-sydney-841">University of Sydney</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-spoke-to-100-japanese-seniors-and-learnt-the-secret-to-a-good-retirement-is-a-good-working-life-238571">original article</a>. </div>

Retirement Life

How do heat protectants for hair work? A chemistry expert explains

<div class="theconversation-article-body"> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/daniel-eldridge-1494633">Daniel Eldridge</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/swinburne-university-of-technology-767">Swinburne University of Technology</a> Heat can do amazing things to change your hairstyle. Whether you’re using a curling wand to get ringlets, a flat iron to straighten or a hair dryer to style, it’s primarily the heat from these tools that delivers results. This comes with casualties. While your hair is surprisingly tolerant to heat compared with many other parts of your body, it can still only withstand so much. Heat treatment hair appliances frequently operate at over 150°C, with some reportedly <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/bioengineering-and-biotechnology/articles/10.3389/fbioe.2019.00298/full#B13">reaching</a> <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289291195_Thermal_degradation_of_hair_I_Effect_of_curling_irons">over 200°C</a>. At these temperatures, your hair can end up fried. Many people use heat protectants, often in the form of sprays, to minimise the damage. So how do these protectants work? To answer that, I first have to explain exactly what heat does to your tresses on the molecular level. <h2>What heat does to your hair</h2> A large proportion of your hair is made up of proteins. There are attractive forces between these proteins, known as hydrogen bonds. These bonds play a big role in dictating the shape of your locks. When you heat up your hair, the total attraction of these hydrogen bonds become weaker, allowing you to more easily re-shape your hair. Then, when it cools back down, these attractions between the proteins are re-established, helping your hair hold its new look until the proteins rediscover their normal structure. The cuticle – the outermost protective layer of your hair – contains overlapping layers of cells that lose integrity when they’re heated, damaging this outer protective layer. Inside that outer layer is the cortex, which is rich in a protein called keratin. Many proteins don’t <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21635854/">hold up structurally</a> after intense heating. Think of cooking an egg – the change you see is a result of the heat altering the proteins in that egg, unravelling them into different shapes and sizes. It’s a <a href="https://library.scconline.org/v049n04/33">similar story</a> when it comes to heating your hair. The proteins in your hair are also susceptible to heat damage, reducing the overall strength and integrity of the hair. Heat can also affect substances called melanin and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21443842/">tryptophan</a> in your hair, resulting in a change in pigmentation. Heat-damaged hair is <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21635854/">harder to brush</a>. The damage is even more devastating if you use heat styling tools such as <a href="https://labmuffin.com/why-you-should-never-straighten-or-curl-wet-hair/">curling irons or straighteners</a> to <a href="https://library.scconline.org/v062n01/23">heat wet hair</a>, as at the high treatment temperatures, the water soaked up by the fibres can violently evaporate. The result of this is succinctly described by science educator and cosmetic chemist Michelle Wong, also known as <a href="https://labmuffin.com/how-do-heat-protectant-hair-products-work/">Lab Muffin</a>. She notes if you heat wet hair this way, “steam will blast through your hair’s structure”. This steam bubbling or bursting through the hair can <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21443842/">cause substantial damage</a>. It’s worth noting hair dryers don’t concentrate heat in the same way as styling tools such as flat irons or curling wands, but you still need to move the hair dryer around constantly to avoid heat building up in one spot and causing damage. Once heat damage is done, regardless of whether it is severe or mild, the best remaining options are symptom management or a haircut. For all of these reasons, when you’re planning to heat treat your hair, protection is a good idea. <h2>How hair protectants work</h2> When you spray on a hair protectant, many possible key ingredients can go to work. They can have <a href="https://library.scconline.org/v062n01/15">daunting-looking names</a> like polyvinyl pyrrolidone, methacrylates, polyquaterniums, silicones and more. These materials are chosen because they readily stick onto your hair, creating a coating, a bit like this: <figure class="align-center zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/615002/original/file-20240822-16-beyt90.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/615002/original/file-20240822-16-beyt90.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/615002/original/file-20240822-16-beyt90.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=225&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615002/original/file-20240822-16-beyt90.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=225&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615002/original/file-20240822-16-beyt90.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=225&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615002/original/file-20240822-16-beyt90.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615002/original/file-20240822-16-beyt90.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615002/original/file-20240822-16-beyt90.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="A cartoon of coating attached to a strand of hair." /></a><figcaption>Hair protectant applies a coating to your hair. Author provided</figcaption></figure> This coating is a protective layer; it’s like putting an oven mitt on your hands before you handle a hot tray from the oven. To demonstrate, I created these by examining hair under a microscope before and after heat protectant was applied: <figure class="align-center zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/615001/original/file-20240822-16-s2ufqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/615001/original/file-20240822-16-s2ufqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/615001/original/file-20240822-16-s2ufqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615001/original/file-20240822-16-s2ufqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615001/original/file-20240822-16-s2ufqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615001/original/file-20240822-16-s2ufqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615001/original/file-20240822-16-s2ufqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615001/original/file-20240822-16-s2ufqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="These high magnification images of untreated hair, and hair sprayed with a heat treatment spray, show what a difference it can make." /></a><figcaption>These high magnification images of untreated hair, and hair sprayed with a heat treatment spray, show how the product coats your hair strands. Author provided</figcaption></figure> Just like an oven mitt, a hair protectant delays the heat penetration, results in less heat getting through, and helps spread out the effect of the heat, a bit like in this image: <figure class="align-center zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/615003/original/file-20240822-16-tf7xsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/615003/original/file-20240822-16-tf7xsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/615003/original/file-20240822-16-tf7xsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615003/original/file-20240822-16-tf7xsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615003/original/file-20240822-16-tf7xsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615003/original/file-20240822-16-tf7xsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615003/original/file-20240822-16-tf7xsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615003/original/file-20240822-16-tf7xsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="Cartoon demonstrating the difference between heating unprotected and protected hair" /></a><figcaption>Hair protectant can help spread out the effects of the heat. Author provided</figcaption></figure> <a href="https://library.scconline.org/v049n04/33">This helps</a> prevent moisture loss and damage to both the protective surface cell layer (the cuticle) and the protein structure of the hair cortex. For these barriers to work at their best, these heat-protecting layers need to remain bound to your hair. In other words, they stick on really well. For this reason, continued use can sometimes cause a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12221-010-0507-9">buildup</a> which can change the feel and weight of your hair. This buildup is not permanent and can be removed with washing. One final and important note: just like when you use a mitt for the oven, heat does still get through. The only way to prevent heat damage to your hair altogether is to not use heated styling tools.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/233206/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/daniel-eldridge-1494633">Daniel Eldridge</a>, Senior Lecturer in Chemistry, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/swinburne-university-of-technology-767">Swinburne University of Technology</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-heat-protectants-for-hair-work-a-chemistry-expert-explains-233206">original article</a>. </div>

Beauty & Style

"Ridiculous and disrespectful": Groom goes viral for working on wedding day

A wedding photo has gone viral for the wrong reasons after a groom was pictured working on his own wedding day. Torrey Leonard, the founder of US-based start-up company, Thoughtly, shared a photo of his co-founder, Casey Mackrell, pulling out a laptop at his own wedding to get some work done. “My co-founder Casey has built a reputation for himself as ‘the guy who sits on his laptop in bars’ from SF to NYC,” he wrote in the post. “Last week Thoughtly brought on a customer that needed to launch within 2 weeks. He just so happened to be getting married within that 2 week window. “So, here he is wrapping up a pull request. At his own wedding. Congrats Casey – now please, go take some time off.” Hundreds of people were quick to comment on the post, labelling it “one of the most depressing LinkedIn posts to exist” and it was even shared to other social media pages. The groom himself eventually had to clarify saying: “Don’t worry I got back to dancing and champagne 2 seconds later.” But that wasn't enough to appease fellow LinkedIn users. “So your company has such terrible work/life balance that you can’t have a WEDDING without having to work? That’s just sad as hell," one wrote. Another commenter quipped that it was "really sad" the groom didn't call off the wedding to focus on work, saying: “Someone who actually knows how to grind would have called it off the second the contract was signed." A few others questioned the authenticity of the post, saying that it had to be staged as they couldn’t believe that someone would be “that ridiculous and disrespectful to his bride and family”. “Aside from the fact that this is probably staged, pushing people to sacrifice their private life and mental health is not the flex you think it is," another added. In an interview with news.com.au Leonard defended his co-founder's decision and explained the situation. “As a company, what we do is very high-stakes. Every single one of our customers, they depend on us to function perfectly, 24-7, around the clock, no questions asked,” he told the publication. “We work with many publicly traded companies across the globe, and we spend long hours of the night, early mornings awake, monitoring these calls, proactively fixing issues, fixing problems, building new features. “The context of this post, he had to solve a problem, and it was really only something that he could solve. It was a three- to five-minute task. “We understand that this lifestyle is not for everybody. It’s obviously something that is a lot of work, but it’s something that we love.” He also clarified that Mackrell's bride, Grace, did not have a problem with the brief interruption on their happy day. “They were dating for many years, so she’s seen him pull a laptop out at a restaurant dinner table. I mean, it looks crazy, but that’s just who Casey is. She’s obviously fine with it.” Images: LinkedIn

Relationships

No time for a holiday? A ‘workation’ could be the answer

<div class="theconversation-article-body"> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/mariachiara-barzotto-1449459">Mariachiara Barzotto</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-bath-1325">University of Bath</a> Imagine this: you’re lounging on the beach, waves crashing in the background. A laptop sits on the table next to your iced coffee. In between meetings, you dip into the ocean or explore a hiking trail. This is the ideal vision of “workations” – a blend of work and vacation that is <a href="https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1882649/rise-workation-hr-encourage-blurring-lines-home-away#:%7E:text=Since%20many%20people%20shifted%20to,having%20to%20take%20annual%20leave.">gaining popularity</a> worldwide. A workation allows employees to work remotely from a holiday spot, and is part of a larger shift towards more flexible working arrangements, accelerated by the COVID pandemic and the rise of digital technology. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16078055.2022.2134199#d1e474">Workations</a> can last from a few days to several weeks. The concept can be appealing to both employees and companies, but there are challenges too. So, understanding its benefits and limitations is important for workers and employers alike. The most obvious benefit for employees is enjoying a new environment while staying productive. The typical work environment can become monotonous, potentially leading to burnout, decreased creativity and dissatisfaction. A workation offers an escape from this day-to-day grind, providing a refreshing change of scenery. It combines the mental break of a vacation with the flexibility of working remotely, allowing workers to balance their professional and personal lives and <a href="https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/abas/20/1/20_0210112a/_pdf">enhance their creativity</a>. This flexibility may be particularly beneficial for those with high workloads or tight schedules, as they no longer need to sacrifice time away from work to relax. And companies can also reap rewards from approving workations among their staff. One of the most significant advantages is employee retention. Flexible work arrangements are among <a href="https://buffer.com/state-of-remote-work/2023">the top priorities</a> for employees in today’s job market, helping to reduce staff turnover. Offering the option of a workation could also make a company more attractive to prospective employees. And workers who are free to work from inspiring locations may return to their tasks less stressed, and more motivated and engaged. Studies show that remote workers often demonstrate <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1529100615593273">increased organisational commitment</a>. Another advantage is the potential for cost savings. With more employees working remotely, companies may reduce their need for large office spaces or the expensive perks offered in corporate environments such as gyms, canteens and the staffing that goes with them. But there can be challenges too. The boundary between work and leisure can become blurred, and some employees may find it <a href="https://tuprints.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/7578/1/Dissertation_Reinke_Always%20Online%20-%20Boundary%20Management%20and%20Well-being.pdf%20">hard to disconnect from work</a> – defeating the object of travelling to a different workplace. The allure of finishing “just one more task” can prevent employees from truly enjoying their surroundings, potentially leading to exhaustion instead of rejuvenation. Time zone differences can also be a challenge. Juggling meetings and collaborating with colleagues in different time zones can lead to irregular work hours that make it hard to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Distractions are another concern. Beaches, tourist attractions or even the simple novelty of being in a new place can make it difficult to focus on work tasks. Employees need to have a strong sense of discipline to remain productive. For companies, one of the primary challenges is ensuring that employees remain productive. Monitoring performance without feeling intrusive can be a tricky balance for managers to strike. Security is another major concern. Remote work often involves accessing company networks and handling sensitive information. When employees work from unfamiliar locations – particularly in public spaces such as cafes – there may be increased risks related to cybersecurity. Ensuring that employees follow security protocols, use secure wifi and protect sensitive data is crucial. Lastly, workations might not be feasible for all roles. This can lead to disparities in who can take advantage of the opportunity, potentially leading to bad feeling among other staff. For the concept of workations to succeed, both employees and employers should set clear expectations, establish boundaries, and focus on maintaining productivity while allowing time for relaxation. But, if managed properly, they could become a staple of modern work culture. In a world where flexibility and wellbeing are increasingly valued, workations offer a unique opportunity to blend productivity with personal fulfilment, reshaping how we think about work and leisure. <h2>Nine tips for having a successful workation</h2> 1. Choose the right destination Opt for a location with reliable internet access and where the time difference between colleagues and clients is manageable. 2. Set clear boundaries Establish dividing lines between your work and vacation time, and communicate these boundaries with your employer and colleagues. 3. Ensure you have the right tech set-up Bring all the necessary equipment, including noise-cancelling headphones. Double-check that you have remote access to all necessary material before leaving. 4. Plan for cybersecurity Use a secure virtual private network (VPN) to protect company data, and follow your company’s cybersecurity policies to the letter. 5. Understand your company’s remote work policy Read up on things like flexibility in terms of location, time zones, working hours and refunds for co-working spaces or tech tools. 6. Set realistic expectations Don’t expect your workation to feel like a full vacation. Plan your leisure activities around your work schedule. Be prepared to work longer or odd hours if your company operates in a different time zone. 7. Consider the local infrastructure Research amenities such as medical services, food delivery and transport. These might be important if you stay in a more remote or unfamiliar area. Have a contingency plan for health emergencies and check visa requirements. 8. Prepare for flexibility Be ready for unexpected issues like slow internet or disruptions due to local events. Back-up plans, such as access to a co-working space or alternative accommodation, can save you from unnecessary stress. 9. Stay organised Keep a work schedule and a checklist of tasks to ensure that you remain as productive as you are in your regular work environment.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/240485/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/mariachiara-barzotto-1449459">Mariachiara Barzotto</a>, Senior Lecturer in Management Strategy and Organisation, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-bath-1325">University of Bath</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-time-for-a-holiday-a-workation-could-be-the-answer-240485">original article</a>. </div>

Travel Tips

Retirement doesn’t just raise financial concerns – it can also mean feeling unmoored and irrelevant

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/marianne-janack-681018">Marianne Janack</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/hamilton-college-2966">Hamilton College</a> Most discussions of retirement focus on the financial aspects of leaving the workforce: “<a href="https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/EBSA/about-ebsa/our-activities/resource-center/publications/top-10-ways-to-prepare-for-retirement.pdf">How to save enough for retirement</a>” or “<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/investing/when-can-i-retire">How do you know if you have enough money for retirement</a>?” But this might not be the biggest problem that potential retirees face. The deeper issues of meaning, relevance and identity that retirement can bring to the fore are more significant to some workers. Work has <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/work-revolution-ai-wfh-new-book/673572/">become central to the modern American identity</a>, as <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/atlantic-editions/">journalist Derek Thompson bemoans</a> in The Atlantic. And some theorists have argued that work shapes what we are. For most people, as business ethicist <a href="https://www.luc.edu/quinlan/faculty/algini.shtml#:%7E:text=About,the%20Society%20for%20Business%20Ethics.">Al Gini</a> argues, one’s work – which is usually also one’s job – <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203950555">means more than a paycheck</a>. Work can structure our friendships, our understandings of ourselves and others, our ideas about free time, our forms of entertainment – indeed our lives. I <a href="https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/our-faculty/directory/faculty-detail/marianne-janack">teach a philosophy course about the self</a>, and I find that most of my students think of the problems of identity without thinking about how a job will make them into a particular kind of person. They think mostly about the prestige and pay that come with certain jobs, or about where jobs are located. But when we get to <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/">existentialist philosophers</a> such as <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sartre/">Jean-Paul Sartre</a> and <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/beauvoir/">Simone de Beauvoir</a>, I often urge them to think about what it means to say, as the existentialists do, <a href="https://philosophynow.org/issues/115/On_Being_An_Existentialist">that “you are what you do</a>.” How you spend 40 years of your life, I tell them, for at least 40 hours each week – the time many people spend at their jobs – is not just a financial decision. And I have come to see that retirement isn’t just a financial decision, either, as I consider that next phase of my life. <h2>Usefulness, tools and freedom</h2> For Greek and Roman philosophers, <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/title/Work-what-it-has-meant-to-men-through-the-ages/oclc/780872063">leisure was more noble than work</a>. The life of the craftsperson, artisan – or even that of the university professor or the lawyer – was to be avoided if wealth made that possible. The good life was a life not driven by the necessity of producing goods or making money. Work, Aristotle thought, was an obstacle to the achievement of the particular forms of excellence characteristic of human life, like thought, contemplation and study – <a href="https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.7.vii.html">activities that express</a> the <a href="https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.8.viii.html">particular character of human beings</a> and are done for their own sake. And so, one might surmise, retirement would be something that would allow people the kind of leisure that is essential to human excellence. But contemporary retirement does not seem to encourage leisure devoted to developing human excellence, partly because it follows a long period of making oneself into an object – something that is not free. German philosopher Immanuel Kant distinguished between the value of objects and of subjects by the idea of “use.” Objects are not free: They are meant to be used, like tools – their value is tied to their usefulness. But rational beings like humans, who are subjects, are more than their use value – <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/title/5796114">they are valuable in their own right</a>, unlike tools. And yet, much of contemporary work culture encourages workers to think of themselves and their value <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Bullshit-Jobs/David-Graeber/9781501143335">in terms of their use value</a>, a change that would have made both Kant and the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers wonder why people didn’t retire as soon as they could. <h2>‘What we do is what we are’</h2> But as one of my colleagues said when I asked him about retirement: “If I’m not a college professor, then what am I?” Another friend, who retired at 59, told me that she does not like to describe herself as retired, even though she is. “Retired implies useless,” she said. So retiring is not just giving up a way of making money; it is a deeply existential issue, one that challenges one’s idea of oneself, one’s place in the world, and one’s usefulness. One might want to say, with Kant and the ancients, that those of us who have tangled up our identities with our jobs have made ourselves into tools, and we should throw off our shackles by retiring as soon as possible. And perhaps from the outside perspective, that’s true. But from the participant perspective, it’s harder to resist the ways in which what we have done has made us what we are. Rather than worry about our finances, we should worry, as we think about retirement, more about what the good life for creatures like us – those who are now free from our jobs – should be.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/233963/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/marianne-janack-681018">Marianne Janack</a>, John Stewart Kennedy Professor of Philosophy, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/hamilton-college-2966">Hamilton College</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/retirement-doesnt-just-raise-financial-concerns-it-can-also-mean-feeling-unmoored-and-irrelevant-233963">original article</a>. </div>

Retirement Income

I’m iron deficient. Which supplements will work best for me and how should I take them?

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/alannah-mckay-1548258">Alannah McKay</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/australian-catholic-university-747">Australian Catholic University</a> Iron deficiency is common and can be debilitating. It mainly affects women. One in three premenopausal women <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57bfc0498419c24a01318ae2/t/607fc2e06ace2f22d5ca9a43/1618985699483/20210421+-+IDC+-+economic+impact+of+iron+deficiency+-+FINAL.pdf">are low in iron</a> compared to just 5% of Australian men. Iron deficiency particularly affects teenage girls, women who do a lot of exercise and those who are pregnant. The <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11160590/">body needs iron</a> to make new red blood cells, and to support energy production, the immune system and cognitive function. If you’re low, you may experience a range of symptoms including fatigue, weakness, shortness of breath, headache, irregular heartbeat and reduced concentration. If a blood test shows you’re iron deficient, your doctor may recommend you start taking an oral iron supplement. But should you take a tablet or a liquid? With food or not? And when is the best time of day? Here are some tips to help you work out how, when and what iron supplement to take. <h2>How do I pick the right iron supplement?</h2> The iron in your body is called “elemental iron”. Choosing the right oral supplement and dose will depend on how much elemental iron it has – your doctor will advise exactly how much you need. The sweet spot is between <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0098299720300364?via%3Dihub">60-120 mg of elemental iron</a>. Any less and the supplement won’t be effective in topping up your iron levels. Any higher and you risk gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhoea, cramping and stomach pain. In Australia, iron salts are the most common oral supplements because they are cheap, effective and come in different delivery methods (tablets, capsules, liquid formulas). <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557376/">The iron salts</a> you are most likely to find in your local chemist are ferrous sulfate (~20% elemental iron), ferrous gluconate (~12%) and ferrous fumarate (~33%). These formulations <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3867244/">all work similarly</a>, so your choice should come down to dose and cost. Many multivitamins may look like an iron supplement, but it’s important to note they usually have too little iron – usually less than 20 mg – to correct an iron deficiency. <h2>Should I take tablets or liquid formulas?</h2> Iron contained within a tablet is <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3867244/">just as well absorbed</a> as iron found in a liquid supplement. Choosing the right one usually comes down to personal preference. The main difference is that liquid formulas tend to contain less iron than tablets. That means you might need to take more of the product to get the right dose, so using a liquid supplement could work out to be more expensive in the long term. <h2>What should I eat with my iron supplement?</h2> Research <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ajh.26987">has shown</a> you will absorb more of the iron in your supplement if you take it on an empty stomach. But this can cause more gastrointestinal issues, so might not be practical for everyone. If you do take your supplement with meals, it’s important to think about what types of food will boost – rather than limit – iron absorption. For example, taking the supplement alongside vitamin C improves your body’s ability to absorb it. Some supplements already contain vitamin C. Otherwise you could take the supplement along with a glass of orange juice, or other <a href="https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminC-HealthProfessional/">vitamin C-rich foods</a>. On the other hand, tea, coffee and calcium all <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ajh.26987">decrease the body’s ability to absorb iron</a>. So you should try to limit these close to the time you take your supplement. <h2>Should I take my supplement in the morning or evening?</h2> The best time of day to take your supplement is in the morning. The body can <a href="https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/fulltext/2019/10000/the_impact_of_morning_versus_afternoon_exercise_on.20.aspx">absorb significantly more</a> iron earlier in the day, when concentrations of hepcidin (the main hormone that regulates iron) are at their lowest. Exercise also affects the hormone that regulates iron. That means taking your iron supplement after exercising can <a href="https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/ijsnem/32/5/article-p359.xml">limit your ability to absorb it</a>. Taking your supplement in the hours following exercise will mean significantly poorer absorption, especially if you take it between two and five hours after you stop. <a href="https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/fulltext/2024/01000/iron_absorption_in_highly_trained_male_runners_.14.aspx">Our research</a> has shown if you exercise every day, the best time to take your supplement is in the morning before training, or immediately after (within 30 minutes). <h2>My supplements are upsetting my stomach. What should I do?</h2> If you experience gastrointestinal side effects such as diarrhoea or cramps when you take iron supplements, you may want to consider taking your supplement every second day, rather than daily. Taking a supplement every day is still the fastest way to restore your iron levels. But a recent study <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(23)00463-7/fulltext#%20">has shown</a> taking the same total dose can be just as effective when it’s taken on alternate days. For example, taking a supplement every day for three months works as well as every second day for six months. This results in fewer side effects. Oral iron supplements can be a cheap and easy way to correct an iron deficiency. But ensuring you are taking the right product, under the right conditions, is crucial for their success. It’s also important to check your iron levels prior to commencing iron supplementation and do so only under medical advice. In large amounts, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430862/">iron can be toxic</a>, so you don’t want to be consuming additional iron if your body doesn’t need it. If you think you may be low on iron, talk to your GP to find out your best options.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/235315/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/alannah-mckay-1548258">Alannah McKay</a>, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Sports Nutrition, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/australian-catholic-university-747">Australian Catholic University</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/im-iron-deficient-which-supplements-will-work-best-for-me-and-how-should-i-take-them-235315">original article</a>. </div>

Body

Why is it so hard to cancel subscriptions or end ‘free’ trials? Report shows how companies trap you into paying

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/katharine-kemp-402096">Katharine Kemp</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/unsw-sydney-1414">UNSW Sydney</a> Many businesses are trapping Australian consumers in paid subscriptions by making them hard to cancel, hiding important details and offering “free” trials that auto-renew with hefty charges. We need law reform to tackle this continuing problem. <a href="https://cprc.org.au/report/let-me-out">A new report</a> shows 75% of Australian consumers have had negative experiences when trying to cancel a subscription, according to the Consumer Policy Research Centre (CPRC). It shows businesses use “<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-spot-avoid-dark-patterns/">dark patterns</a>”, which are designs that hinder consumers who try to act in their own best interests. Subscription traps are often called “<a href="https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2022/11/checking-out-ftcs-100-million-settlement-vonage">Hotel California</a>” techniques, referring to The Eagles’ famous lyric: “you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave”. In some of these cases, consumers may have remedies under our existing consumer law, including for misleading conduct. But we need law reform to capture other <a href="https://treasury.gov.au/consultation/c2023-430458">unfair practices</a>. In the meantime, the CPRC’s research also gives examples of businesses with fair, consumer-friendly subscription practices. These also benefit the business. <h2>Examples of unfair subscription traps</h2> <a href="https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcouncil/2022/09/12/the-evolution-of-the-subscription-model-and-whats-on-the-horizon/">Subscription business models</a> have become common – many products are now provided in the form of software, an app or access to a website. Some of these would once have been a physical book, newspaper, CD or exercise class. Most people who use online services have experienced the frustration of finding a credit card charge for an unwanted, unused subscription or spending excessive time trying to cancel a subscription. <figure class="align-center zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/615486/original/file-20240826-16-fp57es.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/615486/original/file-20240826-16-fp57es.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/615486/original/file-20240826-16-fp57es.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=643&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615486/original/file-20240826-16-fp57es.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=643&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615486/original/file-20240826-16-fp57es.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=643&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615486/original/file-20240826-16-fp57es.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615486/original/file-20240826-16-fp57es.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615486/original/file-20240826-16-fp57es.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="Infographic with a few statistics from the report." /></a><figcaption><a class="source" href="https://cprc.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/CPRC_LetMeOut_SubsTraps_Report_FINAL.pdf">CPRC, Let me out – Subscription trap practices in Australia, August 2024</a></figcaption></figure> Businesses can make it difficult for consumers to stop paying for unwanted subscriptions. Some do this by allowing consumers to start a subscription with a single click, but creating multiple obstacles if you want to end the subscription. This can include obscuring cancellation options in the app, requiring consumers to phone during business hours or making them navigate through multiple steps and offers before terminating. The report points out many of the last-ditch discounts offered in this process are only short term. One survey respondent said: <blockquote> I wasn’t able to cancel without having to call up and speak to someone. Their business hours meant I had to call up during my work day and it took some time to action. </blockquote> Other businesses badger consumers with frequent emails or messages after they cancel. One respondent said a business made “the cancellation process impossible by making you call and then judging your reason for cancellation”. <h2>What does consumer law say?</h2> Some subscription traps already fall foul of the Australian Consumer Law and warrant investigation by the <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-warns-consumers-to-beware-of-subscription-traps">Australian Competition & Consumer Commission</a> (ACCC). Consumers may have remedies where the business has engaged in misleading conduct or imposes an unfair contract term. For example, the ACCC is <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-court-action-against-eharmony-for-alleged-misleading-online-dating-membership-statements#:%7E:text=The%20ACCC%20has%20today%20commenced%20proceedings%20in%20the,the%20pricing%2C%20renewal%20and%20duration%20of%20its%20memberships.">suing dating site eHarmony</a> for its allegedly misleading subscription practices. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/06/ftc-takes-action-against-adobe-executives-hiding-fees-preventing-consumers-easily-cancelling">has filed a complaint against software company Adobe</a> for allegedly using dark patterns in its subscription practices. The Federal Trade Commission has alleged that “Adobe pushed consumers toward the ‘annual paid monthly’ subscription without adequately disclosing that cancelling the plan in the first year could cost hundreds of dollars”. Adobe <a href="https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2024/Adobes-Recent-Statement-Regarding-Updated-Federal-Trade-Commission-Complaint-/default.aspx">issued a statement</a> arguing the commission’s complaint “mischaracterises” its business. The litigation is ongoing. <h2>We need an unfair practices prohibition</h2> Some subscription traps would fall outside the existing consumer law. This is because they don’t meet the test for misleading conduct or unfair contract terms, but make it practically very difficult to cancel. The <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-welcomes-consultation-on-possible-unfair-trading-practices-regulatory-reforms">ACCC has advocated</a> for Australia to follow other countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States to enact an unfair practices prohibition to capture conduct like this. <figure class="align-center zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/615487/original/file-20240826-16-2j23h7.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/615487/original/file-20240826-16-2j23h7.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/615487/original/file-20240826-16-2j23h7.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615487/original/file-20240826-16-2j23h7.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615487/original/file-20240826-16-2j23h7.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615487/original/file-20240826-16-2j23h7.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615487/original/file-20240826-16-2j23h7.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/615487/original/file-20240826-16-2j23h7.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="" /></a><figcaption>The shift businesses can make today. <a class="source" href="https://cprc.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/CPRC_LetMeOut_SubsTraps_Report_FINAL.pdf">CPRC, Let me out – Subscription trap practices in Australia, August 2024</a></figcaption></figure> <h2>Better practices benefit businesses too</h2> The CPRC report also revealed that 90% of Australians would likely purchase from the same organisation if cancelling a subscription process was quick and simple. Businesses focused on a short-sighted cash grab fail to realise that consumers might cancel but later return if treated well. The CPRC highlights businesses that are doing a good job. For instance, the habit change app Atoms (based on James Clear’s book Atomic Habits) has a genuinely free trial. It doesn’t require credit card details, doesn’t auto-renew, and lets consumers know how many trial days remain. The CPRC says the charity World Vision doesn’t auto-renew annual sponsorships, but reminds supporters about when the sponsorship will lapse. Importantly, some businesses – such as Netflix – use their data for good in this context. They notice when users are paying for the service without using it and help them unsubscribe. These practices should be applauded. But we need an unfair practices prohibition for businesses who don’t follow suit and recognise the long-term benefits of treating customers fairly.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/237236/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/katharine-kemp-402096">Katharine Kemp</a>, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law & Justice; Lead, UNSW Public Interest Law & Tech Initiative, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/unsw-sydney-1414">UNSW Sydney</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-it-so-hard-to-cancel-subscriptions-or-end-free-trials-report-shows-how-companies-trap-you-into-paying-237236">original article</a>. </div>

Money & Banking

Australia’s gender pay gap has hit a record low – but we still have work to do

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/leonora-risse-405312">Leonora Risse</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-canberra-865">University of Canberra</a> Australia’s gender pay gap – a key measure of economic inequality between men and women – has fallen to a record low of 11.5%. That’s down from 13% this time last year, the steepest annual fall since 2016. Ten years ago, it was almost 19%. The latest figures are great news for our economy and our society – evidence we’re getting better at recognising and fairly valuing women’s capabilities and contributions. More opportunities are now open to women in the workforce, helping them gain and retire with greater financial independence than in previous decades. But national averages don’t tell the whole story. While gender pay gaps have fallen in some industries, they’ve also been rising in others. Today, August 19, is <a href="https://www.wgea.gov.au/pay-and-gender/equal-pay-day-2024">equal pay day</a>. This marks the 50 extra days past the end of the last financial year that Australian women would need to work for their earnings to match those of their male colleagues. This offers us a timely opportunity to reflect on what exactly has driven this year’s improvement – and where we still have work to do. <h2>Women’s earnings picking up pace</h2> We calculate the gender pay gap by comparing the average weekly ordinary-time, full-time <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/earnings-and-working-conditions/average-weekly-earnings-australia">earnings</a> for men and women. In dollar terms, women are now earning $231.50, or 11.5%, less than men, on average, in their weekly full-time pay packet. <hr /> <iframe id="HwwJ5" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" style="border: 0;" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/HwwJ5/1/" width="100%" height="400px" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> <hr /> The recent narrowing is being driven by women’s average earnings growth picking up pace. This contrasts with <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-02/fact-check-gender-pay-gap/10302358">earlier periods</a> in which the narrowing of the gap tended to be due to a slowdown in the growth of men’s earnings. <hr /> <iframe id="R7uFE" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" style="border: 0;" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/R7uFE/1/" width="100%" height="400px" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> <hr /> <h2>What’s behind the improvement?</h2> While changes in the gender pay gap reflect a range of economy-wide factors, the Albanese government has been quick to attribute the recent fall to the various <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7229747376511447040/">targeted actions</a> it has taken since coming to office. Let’s look at whether and how these actions have played a role. First, the government sought to make wage information more transparent. It <a href="https://theconversation.com/pay-secrecy-clauses-are-now-banned-in-australia-heres-how-that-could-benefit-you-195814">banned pay secrecy clauses</a> and now requires the gender pay gaps of all large companies in Australia to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/qantas-pays-women-37-less-telstra-and-bhp-20-fifty-years-after-equal-pay-laws-we-still-have-a-long-way-to-go-223870">publicly reported</a>. These reforms took effect from 2023, targeting private companies. The gender pay gap in the private sector, though higher to begin with, has fallen more swiftly than that of the public sector, suggesting these actions have had an effect. <hr /> <iframe id="ZKMdm" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" style="border: 0;" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ZKMdm/1/" width="100%" height="400px" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> <hr /> Second, the government targeted gender-patterned biases in industrial relations – including the <a href="https://theconversation.com/50-years-after-equal-pay-the-legacy-of-womens-work-remains-118761">legacy effects</a> of past decisions – and instilled gender equity as a new objective of Australia’s Fair Work Act. The Fair Work Commission is now required to take gender equity into account in its wage deliberations, including its <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/resources/2024fwcfb3500.pdf">minimum wage decision</a>. The government also introduced multi-employer bargaining in an attempt to strengthen workers’ bargaining capacity in female-concentrated sectors. The effects of these changes will continue to flow across the workforce as the Fair Work Commission undertakes its review of modern awards, prioritising those affecting <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/hearings-decisions/major-cases/gender-undervaluation-priority-awards-review">female-concentrated industries</a>. <figure class="align-right zoomable"><figcaption></figcaption></figure> And third, further addressing the historical undervaluation of “women’s work”, the government directly addressed low pay in female-concentrated sectors by supporting a pay rise for <a href="https://www.fairwork.gov.au/newsroom/news/15-per-cent-wage-increase-aged-care-sector">aged care workers</a>. Targeting the low pay and under-valuation of an industry that is about 87% female helped fuel the downward momentum in the overall gender pay gap. The government’s recently announced pay rise for <a href="https://ministers.education.gov.au/anthony-albanese/pay-rise-early-educators-while-keeping-fees-down-families">early childhood education and care workers</a> – a workforce that is around 95% female – will also target gender patterns in low pay once they come into effect. These government actions have been essential for undoing the gender biases embedded in existing systems. And they have complemented other initiatives that have taken effect in the past year, such as the <a href="https://www.respectatwork.gov.au/new-positive-duty-employers-prevent-workplace-sexual-harassment-sex-discrimination-and-victimisation">Respect At Work Act</a>, requiring employers to proactively stamp out sexual harassment. But there is still a way to go to keep closing the gender gaps across all parts of the workforce. <h2>Falling in some industries, rising in others</h2> Breaking down the gender pay gap in earnings by sector paints a more varied picture. In industries like construction, public administration and safety, and retail trade, it has fallen notably over the past two years. <hr /> <iframe id="poLND" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" style="border: 0;" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/poLND/1/" width="100%" height="400px" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> <hr /> But it remains high in industries like healthcare and social assistance, at over 20%, and finance and insurance at 18%. <hr /> <iframe id="6cLnT" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" style="border: 0;" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/6cLnT/2/" width="100%" height="400px" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> <hr /> In some industries, the gap has actually increased over the past two years. In arts and recreation services, as well as electricity, gas, waste and water services, it’s been continually rising. <hr /> <iframe id="M8fve" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" style="border: 0;" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/M8fve/1/" width="100%" height="400px" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> <hr /> <h2>That could reflect a bigger shift</h2> It’s important to interpret these figures carefully. In some instances, a widening of the gender pay gap can reflect a positive shift in an industry’s makeup, if it reflects more women joining a male-dominated sector at entry level, and growing a pipeline of senior women for the future. That’s why the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) gives organisations a chance to explain these dynamics in their <a href="https://www.wgea.gov.au/about/our-legislation/publishing-employer-gender-pay-gaps">employer statements</a>, which are published on the WGEA website alongside organisations’ gender pay gaps. Over time, the entry of more women at the junior level can flow through to more gender balance as these women progress to senior and decision-making roles. The real test will be to ensure – by fostering more gender equitable, inclusive and respectful work cultures and systems – that they do.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/236894/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/leonora-risse-405312">Leonora Risse</a>, Associate Professor in Economics, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-canberra-865">University of Canberra</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-gender-pay-gap-has-hit-a-record-low-but-we-still-have-work-to-do-236894">original article</a>. </div>

Money & Banking

Ovarian cancer is hard to detect. Focusing on these 4 symptoms can help with diagnosis

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jenny-doust-12412">Jenny Doust</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/the-university-of-queensland-805">The University of Queensland</a> Ovarian cancers are often found when they are already advanced and hard to treat. Researchers <a href="https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO.2010.32.2164">have long believed</a> this was because women first experienced symptoms when ovarian cancer was already well-established. Symptoms can also be <a href="https://cancer.org.au/cancer-information/causes-and-prevention/early-detection-and-screening/early-detection-of-ovarian-cancer">hard to identify</a> as they’re vague and similar to other conditions. But <a href="https://ijgc.bmj.com/content/early/2024/07/24/ijgc-2024-005371">a new study</a> shows promising signs ovarian cancer can be detected in its early stages. The study targeted women with four specific symptoms – bloating, abdominal pain, needing to pee frequently, and feeling full quickly – and put them on a fast track to see a specialist. As a result, even the most aggressive forms of ovarian cancer could be detected in their early stages. So what did the study find? And what could it mean for detecting – and treating – ovarian cancer more quickly? <h2>Why is ovarian cancer hard to detect early?</h2> Ovarian cancer <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24979449/">cannot be detected</a> via cervical cancer screening (which used to be called a pap smear) and pelvic exams <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24979449/">aren’t useful</a> as a screening test. Current <a href="https://www.canceraustralia.gov.au/cancer-types/gynaecological-cancers/clinicians-hub/ovarian-cancer-guidelines">Australian guidelines</a> recommend women get tested for ovarian cancer if they have symptoms for <a href="https://www.canceraustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/assessment-symptoms-may-be-ovarian-cancer-guide-gps/pdf/ocg_assessment_of_symptoms_gp_card_0.pdf">more than a month</a>. But many of the <a href="https://cancer.org.au/cancer-information/types-of-cancer/ovarian-cancer">symptoms</a> – such as tiredness, constipation and changes in menstruation – are vague and overlap with other common illnesses. This makes early detection a challenge. But it is crucial – a woman’s <a href="https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/ovary.html">chances of surviving ovarian cancer</a> are associated with how advanced the cancer is when she is diagnosed. If the cancer is still confined to the original site with no spread, the five-year survival rate is 92%. But over half of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer first present when the cancer has <a href="https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/ovary.html">already metastatised</a>, meaning it has spread to other parts of the body. If the cancer has spread to nearby lymph nodes, the survival rate is reduced to 72%. If the cancer has already metastasised and spread to distant sites at the time of diagnosis, the rate is only 31%. There are mixed findings on whether detecting ovarian cancer earlier leads to better survival rates. For example, a trial in the UK that screened more than 200,000 women <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37183782/">failed to reduce deaths</a>. That study screened the general public, rather than relying on self-reported symptoms. The new study suggests asking women to look for specific symptoms can lead to earlier diagnosis, meaning treatment can start more quickly. <h2>What did the new study look at?</h2> Between June 2015 and July 2022, the researchers recruited 2,596 women aged between 16 and 90 from 24 hospitals across the UK. They were asked to monitor for these four symptoms: <ul> <li>persistent abdominal distension (women often refer to this as bloating)</li> <li>feeling full shortly after starting to eat and/or loss of appetite</li> <li>pelvic or abdominal pain (which can feel like indigestion)</li> <li>needing to urinate urgently or more often.</li> </ul> Women who reported at least one of four symptoms persistently or frequently were put on a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22479719/">fast-track pathway</a>. That means they were sent to see a gynaecologist within two weeks. The fast track pathway has been used in the UK since 2011, but is not specifically part of Australia’s guidelines. Some 1,741 participants were put on this fast track. First, they did a blood test that measured the cancer antigen 125 (CA125). If a woman’s CA125 level was abnormal, she was sent to do a internal vaginal ultrasound. <h2>What did they find?</h2> The study indicates this process is better at detecting ovarian cancer than general screening of people who don’t have symptoms. Some 12% of women on the fast-track pathway were diagnosed with some kind of ovarian cancer. A total of 6.8% of fast-tracked patients were diagnosed with high-grade serous ovarian cancer. It is the most aggressive form of cancer and responsible for 90% of ovarian cancer deaths. Out of those women with the most aggressive form, one in four were diagnosed when the cancer was still in its early stages. That is important because it allowed treatment of the most lethal cancer before it had spread significantly through the body. There were some promising signs in treating those with this aggressive form. The majority (95%) had surgery and three quarters (77%) had chemotherapy. Complete cytoreduction – meaning all of the cancer appears to have been removed – was achieved in six women out of ten (61%). It’s a promising sign that there may be ways to “catch” and target ovarian cancer before it is well-established in the body. <h2>What does this mean for detection?</h2> The study’s findings suggest this method of early testing and referral for the symptoms leads to earlier detection of ovarian cancer. This may also improve outcomes, although the study did not track survival rates. It also points to the importance of public awareness about symptoms. Clinicians should be able to recognise all of the ways ovarian cancer can present, including vague symptoms like general fatigue. But empowering members of the general public to recognise a narrower set of four symptoms can help trigger testing, detection and treatment of ovarian cancer earlier than we thought. This could also save GPs advising every woman who has general tiredness or constipation to undergo an ovarian cancer test, making testing and treatment more targeted and efficient. Many women remain <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24612526/&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1723610085733806&usg=AOvVaw3J5o5DwRFiDzFaQcD7VTQn">unaware of the symptoms</a> of ovarian cancer. This study shows recognising them may help early detection and treatment.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/236775/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jenny-doust-12412">Jenny Doust</a>, Clinical Professorial Research Fellow, Australian Women and Girls' Health Research Centre, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/the-university-of-queensland-805">The University of Queensland</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ovarian-cancer-is-hard-to-detect-focusing-on-these-4-symptoms-can-help-with-diagnosis-236775">original article</a>. </div>

Body

It’s hard to reach out to old friends, but doing so may help alleviate loneliness

<div class="theconversation-article-body"> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/lara-b-aknin-1365501">Lara B Aknin</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/simon-fraser-university-1282">Simon Fraser University</a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/gillian-sandstrom-1283157">Gillian Sandstrom</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-sussex-1218">University of Sussex</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kristina-castaneto-1548733">Kristina Castaneto</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/simon-fraser-university-1282">Simon Fraser University</a> Millions of <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=4510004801">Canadians are lonely</a>. This is worrisome because loneliness, defined by the World Health Organization as “<a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/15-11-2023-who-launches-commission-to-foster-social-connection">the social pain of not feeling connected</a>,” predicts both lower mental and physical health. Research shows that lacking a sense of social connection can pose an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691614568352">equivalent health risk to smoking 15 cigarettes per day</a>. To combat loneliness, people are commonly advised to seek out social connection. For many, this guidance brings to mind spending time with loved ones, such as close friends, family and romantic partners. But are there other people we can reach out to? In our research, recently published in Communications Psychology, we examined whether people have “old friends” — individuals that they care about but with whom they have lost touch — and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-024-00075-8">how easily these relationships can be rekindled</a>. We found that certain strategies can help people reconnect — and, in new research, we are getting a sense that certain values and personality traits may make it easier for people to stay in touch far into the future. <h2>Reconnecting with old friends</h2> Across a series of seven studies, we found the majority of people reported having an old friend. Yet, when we asked over 400 participants how willing they would be to reach out to an old friend right now, most said they were neutral or unwilling. In fact, in one study, people reported being no more willing to reach out to an old friend than they were to talk to a stranger or pick up trash. This reluctance was observable in behaviour too. We conducted two experiments in which more than 1,000 people were given several minutes to draft and send a message to an old friend. Only 30 per cent sent the message to their old friend. Given that reaching out to an old friend could boost <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2018/08/19/the-power-and-joy-of-reconnecting-with-old-friends/">feelings of social connection and happiness</a>, we tried designing interventions to encourage reaching out. For instance, we reminded participants that reaching out to an old friend was an act of kindness and that the recipient would appreciate it more than they realize. We also tried telling participants not to overthink it — to just send their message. Unfortunately, neither prompt was effective at encouraging more people to reach out. <h2>Reluctance to reconnect</h2> Why are people reluctant to reach out to old friends? There may be a number of reasons, including the possibility that old friends feel like strangers after time has passed. In one study with over 500 participants we asked people to list between three to five old friends, and tell us how close each one felt to them right now. The more unfamiliar an old friend felt, the less willing people were to reach out. Research has found that when people <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104356">practise talking to strangers for a week</a>, they become less anxious about it. If old friends can feel like strangers, might a similar strategy encourage people to reach out to old friends? To find out, we conducted an experiment in which we randomly assigned some people to complete a three-minute warm-up activity in which they messaged current family or friends. Other participants were randomly assigned to a control condition in which they simply browsed social media for three minutes instead. Afterward, all participants were given an opportunity to write and send a message to an old friend. While only 30 per cent of participants sent their message in the control condition, over 50 per cent did so after warming-up, suggesting that practising the behaviour that underlies reaching out may make this act easier. <h2>Personality traits</h2> We are extending this research in a number of new directions. For instance, in some newly conducted and unpublished research, we are examining whether people with certain personality traits or beliefs are more likely to send a message to an old friend. Responses from over 300 people suggest that people who are open to new experiences — <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/basics/big-5-personality-traits">one of the five key personality traits studied by psychologists</a> — say they are willing to reach out to an old friend. Despite this inclination, our research found that highly open people do not necessarily communicate with old friends when given the chance. On the other hand, people’s values and beliefs may be important determinants of whether they stay in touch. Our preliminary work shows that people who see friendship as a bond that does not easily break may be more likely to reach out than others. We hope this work helps normalize the fact that friendships can fade and be hard to rekindle. That said, with some practice, people can overcome this reluctance and hit “send” to potentially open a path to connection and less loneliness.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/234895/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/lara-b-aknin-1365501">Lara B Aknin</a>, Distinguished Professor of Social Psychology, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/simon-fraser-university-1282">Simon Fraser University</a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/gillian-sandstrom-1283157">Gillian Sandstrom</a>, Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-sussex-1218">University of Sussex</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kristina-castaneto-1548733">Kristina Castaneto</a>, Master's Student, Psychology, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/simon-fraser-university-1282">Simon Fraser University</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-hard-to-reach-out-to-old-friends-but-doing-so-may-help-alleviate-loneliness-234895">original article</a>. </div>

Relationships

Why IBD is so hard to treat – and how scientists are making progress

<div class="theconversation-article-body"> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/falk-hildebrand-1490022">Falk Hildebrand</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/quadram-institute-5557">Quadram Institute</a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/katarzyna-sidorczuk-1490026">Katarzyna Sidorczuk</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/quadram-institute-5557">Quadram Institute</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/wing-koon-1490274">Wing Koon</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/quadram-institute-5557">Quadram Institute</a> Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5478758/">life altering</a> chronic illness that is <a href="https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/13/3/e065186">rising dramatically globally</a>. It is stubbornly difficult to treat, and many people find the treatments we have just don’t work for them. Over the last 30 years, there has been almost a 50% increase in cases – now affecting around 5 million people. Not to be confused with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) which is a condition that affects the digestive system, IBD is more serious. It is the term for two severe illnesses called <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/crohns-disease/">Crohn’s disease</a> and <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/ulcerative-colitis/">ulcerative colitis</a>. More women are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9958616/#:%7E:text=Male%20predominance%20in%20IBD.,%2C%202.32%3A1%20in%20CD.">diagnosed with Crohn’s disease</a> while more men are affected by ulcerative colitis. People with IBD can experience a variety of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4106026/">symptoms</a>, ranging from diarrhoea and blood in the stool, to weight loss and belly aches. On paper, this may sound no worse than mild food poisoning, however, this is no normal stomach upset. Experiences are often extreme; people with IBD can suffer excruciating pain and in some cases, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9963331/">require surgery</a> to remove parts of the bowel. This is done by redirecting the bowel to a hole in the abdomen, where faeces are collected in a <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/colostomy/">colostomy bag</a>. However, we still don’t fully understand the cause of IBD. <h2>The impact of inflammation</h2> The main symptom of IBD is excessive and uncontrolled <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5805548/">inflammation</a> – normally a sign of the body fighting off an infection. Although inflammation is an important aspect of our immune system, in IBD it is happening when the body is not under attack. Since we don’t know what causes this over-the-top reaction, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8720971/">treatments</a> are limited to managing the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3964397/">derailed immune system</a>. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8373857/">Inflammation is controlled</a> by cell signalling. Our cells detect bacteria using receptors that attach to parts of bacteria. This activates the receptor, causing it to send a signal to proteins, and each protein sends on more signals, creating a signal cascade. This is what tells the body it’s under attack. Many treatments follow the strategy of intercepting signals and preventing the signal cascade from starting. However, they are <a href="https://journals.lww.com/co-gastroenterology/abstract/2022/07000/management_of_refractory_inflammatory_bowel.6.aspx">not effective</a> for many people. Scientists are trying to target a different protein network, called <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2924159/">NOD2</a>, that often goes haywire in people with IBD but is not targeted by current treatments. A protein, called <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2021.650403/full">RIPK2</a>, seems like a promising target since it is <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6939834/">only found</a> in this network. Researchers from the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10485824/">European Molecular Biology Laboratory</a> are investigating its structure to help scientists design a new medication that will block the signals from this protein. <h2>Importance of the microbiome</h2> Another inspiration for new treatments comes from the bacteria residing in our guts. This community of bacteria, called the gut microbiome, has been associated with <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6314516/">all sorts of health conditions</a> ranging from asthma to obesity. Gut bacteria work closely with our bodies and play a vital role in digesting food and managing our <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0332-7">immune system</a>. In a healthy person, there is a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4143175/">fine balance</a> between gut bacteria and the immune system. Disruption of this balance can lead to disease, starting from minor discomfort to more severe, long-term conditions. Scientists are trying to understand how our bodies interact with gut bacteria, and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8102608/">what changes</a> when people develop IBD. The gut microbiome is an ecosystem. Just like a forest has animals eating different things, microbes can form a <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2019.00153/full">food web</a>. Some bacteria will use up one type of food, while others feed off other foods. Some rely on the waste of other bacteria after they’ve eaten. It is now believed that disruption to the gut microbiome is a characteristic of IBD and contributes to its development and progression. It’s a chicken and egg situation. Is there a change in the bacteria and food web that alters our bodies? Or does something else in the body, like our immune system, change the food web, subsequently limiting which bacteria can grow? Scientists aren’t sure of the answer. Instead of trying to figure out what happens first, a team at the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42112-w">Hudson Institute of Medical Research</a> in Australia have focused on investigating which interactions in the food web are the most affected in IBD. This could help scientists to prioritise certain gut bacteria, or their food source, to restore the balance in the microbiome and improve patients’ symptoms. Hopefully, this specialised targeting of the microbiome will lead to more effective and longer lasting treatments. Although we have a long way to go before these ideas for treatments can become a reality, it is a step in the right direction. Targeting a new signalling pathway will hopefully control the inflammation in more patients. And studying the microbiome may reveal how we can reverse changes associated with IBD. Since they are key features of IBD, these developments could allow doctors to stop the disease in the early stages and reduce complications.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218307/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/falk-hildebrand-1490022">Falk Hildebrand</a>, Researcher in Bioinformatician, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/quadram-institute-5557">Quadram Institute</a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/katarzyna-sidorczuk-1490026">Katarzyna Sidorczuk</a>, Research Scientist in Metagenomics, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/quadram-institute-5557">Quadram Institute</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/wing-koon-1490274">Wing Koon</a>, PhD student in Bioinformatics, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/quadram-institute-5557">Quadram Institute</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-ibd-is-so-hard-to-treat-and-how-scientists-are-making-progress-218307">original article</a>. </div>

Body

Holiday protesters are missing the big picture – there are ways to make tourism work for everyone

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/brendan-canavan-228682">Brendan Canavan</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-nottingham-1192">University of Nottingham</a> As tourists sip their drinks at sunny pavement cafes this summer, they may feel slight unease that perhaps their presence isn’t entirely welcome. This season has seen a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c0dm9w2ey7po">renewed wave of major protests</a> against tourists for pushing out residents and homogenising culture in popular destinations. Anti-tourist placards and gatherings have appeared in <a href="https://www.portugalresident.com/sintra-residents-finally-say-enough-to-mass-tourism-traffic-chaos/">Portugal</a>, <a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/greek-city-begs-no-more-095204268.html">Athens</a>, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/22/travel/mass-protest-on-spanish-island-mallorca-calls-for-limits-on-tourism/index.html">Mallorca</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/thousands-protest-spains-canary-islands-over-mass-tourism-2024-04-20/">Tenerife</a>. Tourists have even been sprayed with <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/travel/barcelona-protesters-throw-items-spray-travelers-water-shouting-touris-rcna160883">water pistols</a> by angry inhabitants of Barcelona. Anti-tourism protests are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2017/aug/10/anti-tourism-marches-spread-across-europe-venice-barcelona">not new</a>, and they do not always share the same <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJTC-09-2022-0211/full/html#sec014">motivations</a>. But one <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJTC-09-2022-0211/full/html#sec014">common grievance</a> is that local economies are not improved by tourism, while the social costs of hosting mount. But are these anti-tourism sentiments justified? Tourism contributes around <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00472875211028322">5% of EU economic activity</a>, supporting jobs and businesses both directly and indirectly. Without tourism many places would be economically poorer. But protesters in <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/your-paradise-our-nightmare-thousands-attend-anti-tourism-protest-in-majorca-13183160">Mallorca</a> have argued that tourists take up space on beaches, put a strain on public services and drive the cost of housing above a level that residents can afford. The economic pros and cons of tourism suggest the protesters have a point. But they are also missing the bigger picture. An estimated <a href="https://studytravel.network/magazine/news/0/30772#:%7E:text=Globally%2C%20there%20were%201.3%20billion,data%20quoted%20in%20the%20report.">1.3 billion</a> international tourist trips took place in 2023. These tourists spent over <a href="https://x.com/UNWTO/status/1796821487971905590">US$1.5 trillion</a> (£1.2 trillion) on their trips. For comparison, that is roughly the size of the Spanish economy. If tourism were a nation, it would be a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)">G20 member</a>. What’s more, because international travellers earn money in their home country and spend it in another, international tourism is counted as an export. In 2022 international tourists spent almost <a href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/urban-rural-and-regional-development/data/oecd-tourism-statistics/receipts-and-expenditure_c4170878-en?parentId=http%3A%2F%2Finstance.metastore.ingenta.com%2Fcontent%2Fcollection%2F2b45a380-en">€370 billion</a> (£312 billion) in the 27 EU countries, for example. This export income helps to balance the cost of imports and pay for things such as food and fuel not available locally. Nonetheless, there remains a concern that such economic inputs come at too high a cost. In January the then head of Florence’s Galleria dell’Accademia controversially criticised how the city had <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/30/travel/italy-florence-prostitute-tourism-intl-scli/index.html">sold its soul</a> to tourists. But <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00472875231203395">tourism revenues</a> help provide foreign exchange earnings, create jobs, encourage infrastructure investments and boost tax revenues. In turn these inputs promote economic development and increase welfare, as well as reduce <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ImtQ9YQS7UrYJ_PItcgeFhFUidcxTwkC/view">income inequality</a>. Globally, the tourism industry is a significant source of employment. In 2019, prior to the pandemic, travel and tourism accounted for <a href="https://wttc.org/research/economic-impact">10.5%</a> of all jobs. In some <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/08/destinations-rely-most-on-tourism-travel/">Caribbean islands</a> more than 90% of all jobs are in the tourism sector. Crossover benefits of hosting tourists are felt in other industries too. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00472875231203395">Food and drink</a> producers sell their products to tourists, for example, and <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/13/7164">farmers</a> can diversify their incomes by offering tourist experiences such as wine-tasting tours. Tourism generates a large amount of economic activity, therefore. But research shows that the income that remains in a destination is often limited by <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cristina-Joensson/publication/293487803_Economic_leakages_in_tourism/links/56b8f33608ae3b658a88b7a4/Economic-leakages-in-tourism.pdf">leakage rates</a>. There are estimates that for every US$1 million spent by tourists in the Seychelles, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160738315000468?casa_token=-hjGHa9NHPMAAAAA:irVmwVrFbZvnTNzDPKcE90_dK4mwuwVBIkO4_nPs34IdGM12w9i4r8GCR_1K_0IIrJznxx2b">less than half</a> of this stays in the local economy. This income can <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1470-6431.2007.00606.x?casa_token=bentpmB1dE8AAAAA%3A72smahI3xNJB2Y7_PDj-lcZG6nmW7fqPgOv59G4Dr-DBfzWfxjtxRU9qytrdpOWmaLom6oe6dM_U0oA">leak out</a> from the destination because of imports such as food and fuel that are not available locally. Leakage also occurs when tourist facilities are foreign owned. <figure><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/S-p-YGNXEnY?wmode=transparent&start=0" width="440" height="260" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></figure> There are undoubtedly <a href="https://www.euronews.com/travel/2024/07/08/fake-signs-and-hunger-strikes-whats-behind-europes-backlash-against-overtourism">downsides</a> to tourism development. The influx of people into popular destinations can add to issues of crowding in public services and shared spaces. Tourism is also often accused of causing urgent economic problems, such as forcing up the cost of housing for locals. But these are often driven by more complex and alternative factors. Research in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0042098020970865">London</a>, a city facing an extreme problem of supply scarcity and growing numbers of <a href="https://theconversation.com/surging-property-prices-when-will-europes-cities-become-affordable-again-230256">“generation rent”</a>, found that Airbnb plays a relatively insignificant part in increasing housing costs. A study in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13683500.2019.1711027?casa_token=YYKyikeJrXYAAAAA:ktQVCuNoseTdiAC89hl98rdclxE7I68CqkYW6xHUFkzH_TLfabdFOuNfKDQiiIzkOdag7cuQTrho">South Carolina</a> in the US meanwhile showed that short-term holiday rentals can boost hospitality micro-entrepreneurs and help residents to maximise the economic potential of their homes by renting out spare rooms. <h2>What can tourists do?</h2> Ultimately, what unites many anti-tourism protesters is a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240522-the-worlds-revolt-against-bad-tourists">demand for respect</a>. Indeed, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10941665.2020.1768129?casa_token=4DR7vsQpGtcAAAAA:0QIzenTi9LAaVNH8w0JkT46D5_okuotUR5C-wP2NyxxT5bC0UiG2gMBfLHt5G3rveVre7gu8kEIB">research</a> has shown that over-tourism is not merely an issue of overcrowding, but a long-term issue resulting from inappropriate treatment of residents in the process of tourism development. Tourists can demonstrate that they respect hosts and help to alleviate anti-tourism feelings by finding ways to ensure their holiday is as economically beneficial to the destination as possible. <ul> <li> Spending money at smaller-scale and locally owned businesses puts more money into the local economy. Large multinationals can out-compete local businesses and worsen <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ImtQ9YQS7UrYJ_PItcgeFhFUidcxTwkC/view">economic inequality</a>. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1354816616654244?casa_token=YQU0aoDhdP8AAAAA:bX_7TEc0S4zhkl2eduKZqitorJKlbRMMSnaJAZJBPCm8bAk-uQMI518KvZX09oI0iLs13NULXYoX">Foreign-owned businesses</a> typically increase leakage rates as they send profits back to their headquarters. </li> <li> Choosing more sustainable operators, services and destinations tends to bring economic positives. In <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1354816616664249?casa_token=vr7pQyvIVAgAAAAA%3ATLHqmXTyGeHpmL8j9K2cNjb4doB4w_0CNH0IspadKHEPSt5PsFLWVngRQsj81tvE3vIJMpPWGm31&journalCode=teua">Mauritius</a>, for instance, the government has invested in sustainable tourism planning, enhancing economic growth and bringing benefits for residents. </li> <li> Visiting places that are less typically touristic spreads economic advantages around. In Scotland, nature tourism supports around <a href="https://www.nature.scot/professional-advice/social-and-economic-benefits-nature/tourism">39,000 full-time jobs</a>. </li> </ul> It can be easy to scapegoat tourists and tourism for deeper-seated economic problems. Tourists are a highly visible, and frequently very annoying, presence. But without them destinations would be poorer, while persistent economic problems would likely remain. Challenging governments, policy-makers, corporations or institutions might be a better use of protesters’ energy.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/235614/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/brendan-canavan-228682">Brendan Canavan</a>, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-nottingham-1192">University of Nottingham</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/holiday-protesters-are-missing-the-big-picture-there-are-ways-to-make-tourism-work-for-everyone-235614">original article</a>. </div>

Travel Trouble

The right to disconnect is coming to Australia. What does this mean for you?

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/john-l-hopkins-255434">John L. Hopkins</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/swinburne-university-of-technology-767">Swinburne University of Technology</a> Next month, changes to the Australian Fair Work Act will give workers the <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/hearings-decisions/major-cases/variation-modern-awards-include-right-disconnect#:%7E:text=Changes%20to%20the%20Fair%20Work,2025%20for%20small%20business%20employers%20.">formal right</a> to disconnect from all work communication outside their usual work hours. The main driver for introducing “right to disconnect” laws has been to protect the health and wellbeing of workers in an increasingly hyper-connected world. But what exactly will the new laws mean for Australian businesses, managers and employees? <h2>Right to disconnect origins</h2> Right to disconnect laws were first introduced in <a href="https://www.simmons-simmons.com/en/publications/ck0bdjgs8esrg0b59w3wb1nkr/110117-le-droit-a-la-deconnexion-questce-que-cest">France</a> in 2017 in response to concern about the welfare of workers who were increasingly connected to their workplaces as a result of expanding digital technologies. France introduced a law requiring companies with more than 50 employees to negotiate agreements with staff on their rights to ignore their smartphones and other electronic devices after work hours. The <a href="https://www.ijmar.org/v5n3/18-008.html">reaction</a> was mixed. Some praised the move for promoting work–life balance and reducing stress, while others raised concerns about its potential impact on productivity and competitiveness. One critic at the time said "the French may quickly discover that their most productive workers are routine “lawbreakers” who stay connected during off-hours." To learn more about this topic, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/su16124970">I reviewed 21 academic articles on the right to disconnect</a>, from 15 different countries over the past seven years, and identified several themes that may help Australian managers. <h2>The ‘always on’ culture</h2> The growth of digital devices – including smartphones, laptops, tablets and smart watches – means many Australian workers have been working way beyond their contracted number of hours for many years. A 2023 Australia Institute <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Short-Changed-GHOTD-2023.pdf">study</a> estimated Australian workers on average were doing an extra 5.4 hours of unpaid work per week. The unofficial encroachment of work duties into workers’ personal time – also called “availability creep” or “time theft” – equates to an extra 281 hours’ unpaid work per year. This is estimated to be costing workers an average of AU$11,055 annually. It has led to serious concerns for employee health and welfare, work-life balance and workplace exploitation. The post-pandemic rise of flexible work arrangements in Australia, while offering many <a href="https://researchbank.swinburne.edu.au/file/be3dfbba-fc85-4834-97aa-7a7399a94b17/1/2020-hopkins-key_working_from.pdf">lifestyle and health benefits</a>, may also contribute to our “always on” culture and expectations to be constantly available and contactable. <figure class="align-right zoomable"><figcaption>T</figcaption></figure> This <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/julianhayesii/2024/03/25/the-rising-dark-side-of-remote-work-that-ceos-need-to-pay-attention-to/">digital presenteeism</a> has been found to affect the health of workers in different ways, including causing headaches, eyestrain, insomnia, back pain, anxiety and burnout. <h2>Protecting workers</h2> Another key theme of right to disconnect laws is how working time, work availability and rest times are observed. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59263300">Portugal has even taken things a step further</a> than other countries, placing the responsibility for the right to disconnect on the employer, by implementing “refrain from contact” laws. This means companies with more than ten employees can be fined if they text or email staff outside their contracted hours. However, the new Australian law won’t restrict managers from contacting employees whenever they wish, but it will give their employees a <a href="https://www.fairwork.gov.au/about-us/workplace-laws/legislation-changes/closing-loopholes/right-to-disconnect#:%7E:text=Eligible%20employees%20will%20have%20a,employer%20or%20a%20third%20party.">legal right</a> to refuse to "monitor, read or respond to communications from an employer or third party made outside their working hours, unless refusal is unreasonable." If an employee chooses not to respond, disciplinary action cannot be taken, nor can the employee be treated differently, such as through rostering or performance requirements, for deciding to disconnect. This should encourage conversations about what represents reasonable contact. The Fair Work Commission says this must be based on the reason for contact, the employee’s personal circumstances, the nature of the employee’s role and responsibilities, and whether the employee is being compensated for being available outside ordinary work hours. <h2>Making the change</h2> In some countries, right to disconnect policies have been formally set in law, while others rely on self-regulation by employers instead. France, for example, legislated out-of-hours’ electronic communication between employers and employees through statutes and legislation, meaning government entities are required to enforce the right and a court is needed to interpret it. Germany, on the other hand, does not formally legislate disconnection provisions but many of its companies (including car manufacturers <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Martin-Bressler/publication/335058028_On_the_Grid_247365_and_the_Right_to_Disconnect/links/5d4c815c92851cd046ad2a4d/On-the-Grid-24-7-365-and-the-Right-to-Disconnect.pdf">Volkswagen and Daimler</a>) already have their own regulations in place. In Australia, the right to disconnect will be a right under <a href="https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/protections-at-work">general protection laws</a>. Disputes about an employee’s response will need to be discussed and resolved at the workplace level but, if a resolution isn’t possible, employees or employers can <a href="https://www.fairwork.gov.au/about-us/workplace-laws/legislation-changes/closing-loopholes/right-to-disconnect">take the case to the Fair Work Commission</a>. The commission can then make orders or deal with the dispute in other ways. <h2>What to expect</h2> The new laws come into effect 26 August. They are an important step towards encouraging sensible conversations about the importance of rest, availability, and whether it is necessary to contact workers outside their normal hours. Right to disconnect laws should challenge managers to create a work culture where employees feel comfortable disconnecting from work and understand the importance of maintaining a clear boundary between work and rest, where their rest periods are formally respected and preserved. As an initiative for supporting improved digital wellbeing and work-life balance, in today’s hyperconnected world, clearer boundaries between working time and rest are crucial.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/231690/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/john-l-hopkins-255434">John L. Hopkins</a>, Associate professor, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/swinburne-university-of-technology-767">Swinburne University of TechnologIy</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-right-to-disconnect-is-coming-to-australia-what-does-this-mean-for-you-231690">original article</a>. </div>

Legal

The tragic reason Miriam Margolyes is still working at 83

Miriam Margolyes has shared the tragic reason that she is still working in showbiz at the age of 83. The acting legend has long suffered with spinal stenosis – a condition that occurs when the spinal canal or neural foramen narrows, putting pressure on the spinal cord and nerve roots. Despite suffering from the debilitating illness, the 83-year-old British star has appeared on numerous TV shows over the years. Now, speaking candidly to the Radio Times, Margolyes admitted that she is still working to fund her medical bills. She said, “I’m worried that I won’t have enough money for carers when I finally get paralysed or whatever it is that’s going to happen to me.” Despite dealing with the physical constraints that come from both her spinal stenosis and her age, which she finds “limiting and depressing”, she said she refuses to slow her pace. “When you know that you haven’t got long to live and I’m probably going to die within the next five or six years, if not before, I’m loath to leave behind performing. It’s such a joy.” “I yearn to play roles that don’t confine me to wheelchairs, but I’m just not strong enough.” Margolyes recently underwent major heart surgery, speaking candidly about the operation with the Table Manners podcast. “I’ve got a cow’s heart now,” she said. “Well, not the whole heart. I’ve had an aortic valve replaced by a cow’s aortic valve. “I don’t know how common it is. I’d never heard of that operation. But it saves you from having open-heart surgery, which would be infinitely more invasive.” In the same interview, Margolyes revealed she expected to be a wheelchair soon. “When you get old you become obviously aware of your vulnerability. I have a bad back, I’m probably going to be in a wheelchair soon and you have to come to terms with what life throws at you.” Image credits: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock Editorial

Caring

Cheeky diet soft drink getting you through the work day? Here’s what that may mean for your health

<div class="theconversation-article-body"> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/lauren-ball-14718">Lauren Ball</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/the-university-of-queensland-805">The University of Queensland</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/emily-burch-438717">Emily Burch</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/southern-cross-university-1160">Southern Cross University</a> Many people are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7230225/">drinking less</a> sugary soft drink than in the past. This is a great win for public health, given the <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2749350">recognised risks</a> of diets high in sugar-sweetened drinks. But over time, intake of diet soft drinks has <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7230225/">grown</a>. In fact, it’s so high that these products are now regularly <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412020319188">detected in wastewater</a>. So what does the research say about how your health is affected in the long term if you drink them often? <h2>What makes diet soft drinks sweet?</h2> The World Health Organization (WHO) <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/04-03-2015-who-calls-on-countries-to-reduce-sugars-intake-among-adults-and-children">advises</a> people “reduce their daily intake of free sugars to less than 10% of their total energy intake. A further reduction to below 5% or roughly 25 grams (six teaspoons) per day would provide additional health benefits.” But most regular soft drinks contain <a href="https://www.actiononsugar.org/surveys/2014/sugar-sweetened-beverages/">a lot of sugar</a>. A regular 335 millilitre can of original Coca-Cola contains at least <a href="https://www.coca-cola.com/ng/en/about-us/faq/how-much-sugar-is-in-cocacola-original-taste">seven</a> teaspoons of added sugar. Diet soft drinks are designed to taste similar to regular soft drinks but without the sugar. Instead of sugar, diet soft drinks contain artificial or natural sweeteners. The artificial sweeteners include aspartame, saccharin and sucralose. The natural sweeteners include stevia and monk fruit extract, which come from plant sources. Many artificial sweeteners are much sweeter than sugar so less is needed to provide the same burst of sweetness. Diet soft drinks are marketed as healthier alternatives to regular soft drinks, particularly for people who want to reduce their sugar intake or manage their weight. But while surveys of Australian <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7551593/">adults</a> and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/public-health-nutrition/article/adolescents-knowledge-and-beliefs-regarding-health-risks-of-soda-and-diet-soda-consumption/32F3E0FD6727F18F04C63F0390595131">adolescents</a> show most people understand the benefits of reducing their sugar intake, they often aren’t as aware about how diet drinks may affect health more broadly. <h2>What does the research say about aspartame?</h2> The artificial sweeteners in soft drinks are considered safe for consumption by food authorities, including in the <a href="https://www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petitions/aspartame-and-other-sweeteners-food">US</a> and <a href="https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumer/additives/aspartame">Australia</a>. However, some <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4899993/">researchers</a> have raised concern about the long-term risks of consumption. People who drink diet soft drinks regularly and often are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4446768/">more likely</a> to develop certain metabolic conditions (such as diabetes and heart disease) than those who don’t drink diet soft drinks. The link was found even after accounting for other dietary and lifestyle factors (such as physical activity). In 2023, the WHO announced reports had found aspartame – the main sweetener used in diet soft drinks – was “<a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/14-07-2023-aspartame-hazard-and-risk-assessment-results-released">possibly carcinogenic to humans</a>” (carcinogenic means cancer-causing). Importantly though, the report noted there is not enough current scientific evidence to be truly confident aspartame may increase the risk of cancer and emphasised it’s safe to consume occasionally. <h2>Will diet soft drinks help manage weight?</h2> Despite the word “diet” in the name, diet soft drinks are not strongly linked with weight management. In 2022, the WHO conducted a <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/15-05-2023-who-advises-not-to-use-non-sugar-sweeteners-for-weight-control-in-newly-released-guideline">systematic review</a> (where researchers look at all available evidence on a topic) on whether the use of artificial sweeteners is beneficial for weight management. Overall, the randomised controlled trials they looked at suggested slightly more weight loss in people who used artificial sweeteners. But the observational studies (where no intervention occurs and participants are monitored over time) found people who consume high amounts of artificial sweeteners tended to have an increased risk of higher body mass index and a 76% increased likelihood of having obesity. In other words, artificial sweeteners may not directly help manage weight over the long term. This resulted in the WHO <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/15-05-2023-who-advises-not-to-use-non-sugar-sweeteners-for-weight-control-in-newly-released-guideline">advising</a> artificial sweeteners should not be used to manage weight. <a href="http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(16)30296-0">Studies</a> in animals have suggested consuming high levels of artificial sweeteners can signal to the brain it is being starved of fuel, which can lead to more eating. However, the evidence for this happening in humans is still unproven. <h2>What about inflammation and dental issues?</h2> There is <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10817473/">some early evidence</a> artificial sweeteners may irritate the lining of the digestive system, causing inflammation and increasing the likelihood of diarrhoea, constipation, bloating and other symptoms often associated with irritable bowel syndrome. However, this study noted more research is needed. High amounts of diet soft drinks have <a href="https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-023-17223-0">also been</a> linked with liver disease, which is based on inflammation. The consumption of diet soft drinks is also <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40368-019-00458-0#:%7E:text=Diet%20soft%20drinks%20often%20have,2006">associated</a> with dental erosion. Many soft drinks contain phosphoric and citric acid, which can damage your tooth enamel and contribute to dental erosion. <h2>Moderation is key</h2> As with many aspects of nutrition, moderation is key with diet soft drinks. Drinking diet soft drinks occasionally is unlikely to harm your health, but frequent or excessive intake may increase health risks in the longer term. Plain water, infused water, sparkling water, herbal teas or milks remain the best options for hydration.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/233438/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/lauren-ball-14718">Lauren Ball</a>, Professor of Community Health and Wellbeing, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/the-university-of-queensland-805">The University of Queensland</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/emily-burch-438717">Emily Burch</a>, Accredited Practising Dietitian and Lecturer, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/southern-cross-university-1160">Southern Cross University</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/cheeky-diet-soft-drink-getting-you-through-the-work-day-heres-what-that-may-mean-for-your-health-233438">original article</a>. </div>

Food & Wine

We know what to eat to stay healthy. So why is it so hard to make the right choices?

<div class="theconversation-article-body"> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/nina-van-dyke-822557">Nina Van Dyke</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/victoria-university-1175">Victoria University</a> A healthy diet <a href="https://www.who.int/initiatives/behealthy/healthy-diet">protects us</a> against a number of chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes and cancer. From early childhood, we receive an abundance of <a href="https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/healthy-diet/healthy-diet-fact-sheet-394.pdf?sfvrsn=69f1f9a1_2&download=true">information</a> about how we <a href="https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/guidelines/australian-guide-healthy-eating">should eat</a> to be healthy and reduce our risk of disease. And most people have a <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186/1479-5868-11-63.pdf">broad understanding</a> of what healthy eating looks like. But this knowledge <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001209216310584?casa_token=6CZgCmT1RMgAAAAA:sSRsj2o6swVfvoBxMIVrMTxqdczSAiFwfTCYzYQ8U3z4ey_WLQ6knpmk8WRH77zugAS3wEAQrA">doesn’t always result</a> in healthier eating. In our new research, we set out to <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186/s12889-024-18432-x.pdf">learn more</a> about why people eat the way they do – and what prevents them from eating better. Lack of time was a major <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/obr.12472?casa_token=1D1mi-l0TR0AAAAA:dgebTQx-wgw7jbREfdawxZ5AZSDRztvrt8t1tuKyDy1x2mmXlyLDY8z9NbUf0v4hnh80HY_RbAk08Q">barrier</a> to cooking and eating healthier foods. <h2>How do you decide what to eat?</h2> We spoke with <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186/s12889-024-18432-x.pdf">17 adults</a> in a regional centre of Victoria. We chose a regional location because less research <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186/s40900-020-0179-6.pdf">has been done</a> with people living outside of metropolitan areas and because rates of obesity and other diet-related health issues are <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/rural-remote-australians/rural-and-remote-health">higher</a> in such areas in Australia. Participants included a mix of people, including some who said they were over their “most healthy weight” and some who had previously dieted to lose weight. But all participants were either: <ul> <li>young women aged 18–24 with no children</li> <li>women aged 35–45 with primary school aged children</li> <li>men aged 35–50 living with a partner and with pre- or primary-school aged children.</li> </ul> We selected these groups to target <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022318212803669">ages and life-stages</a> in which shifts in eating behaviours may occur. Previous research has found younger women <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1470-6431.2007.00642.x?casa_token=33QKWwhc2ogAAAAA:ZvJ6wfXiRC_6eoqvoxD121JOSKSPmIRHcrdiGl2uHzkq5pY6VVPL6WI2DhmxQ2q9i6bBGvLiFl8afQ">tend to</a> be particularly concerned about appearance rather than healthy eating, while women with children often shift their focus to providing for their family. Men <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/obr.12472?casa_token=KakMB6hAOQ0AAAAA:fLnpoxZQiiJIdEkg_TOcCq8hBwZef1iZETZKTiG5W6zW2x_PYzK0oLeOg5F9arKThq9RzMWEi4x4Xw">tend to be less interested</a> in what they eat. We asked participants about how they decided what food to eat, when, and how much, and what prevented them from making healthier choices. <h2>It’s not just about taste and healthiness</h2> We found that, although such decisions were determined in part by taste preferences and health considerations, they were heavily influenced by a host of other factors, many of which are outside the person’s control. These included other household members’ food preferences, family activities, workplace and time constraints, convenience and price. <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2767106">Healthy eating</a> means consuming a balanced diet rich in nutrients, including a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins and healthy fats, while limiting processed foods, added sugars and excessive salt. Healthy eating also includes how we eat and <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0244292">how we think about</a> food and eating, such as having a positive relationship with food. One 35- to 45-year-old woman, for example, said that time constraints and family preferences made it difficult to prepare healthier food: <blockquote> I love the chance when I can actually get a recipe and get all of the ingredients and make it properly, but that doesn’t happen very often. It’s usually what’s there and what’s quick. And what everyone will eat. </blockquote> One of the 35- to 50-year-old men also noted the extent to which family activities and children’s food preferences dictated meal choices: <blockquote> Well, we have our set days where, like Wednesday nights, we have to have mackie cheese and nuggets, because that’s what the boys want after their swimming lesson. </blockquote> <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/joss.12649?casa_token=gsnU9O_G2GQAAAAA:mV2vtHlnEd0jqBGJPFkfml_ecLIDqwSlH5xksSwt4eQb_FP_UShyAKm9sLNnKy6Mkf2q9aKAlDEixA">Research shows</a> that children are often more receptive to new foods than their parents think. However, introducing new dishes takes additional time and planning. An 18- to 24-year-old woman discussed the role of time constraints, her partner’s activities, and price in influencing what and when she eats: <blockquote> My partner plays pool on a Monday and Wednesday night, so we always have tea a lot earlier then and cook the simple things that don’t take as long, so he can have dinner before he goes rather than buying pub meals which cost more money. </blockquote> Despite popular perceptions, healthy diets are not more expensive than unhealthy diets. A <a href="https://preventioncentre.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/1702_FB_LEE_4p_final_lr.pdf">study</a> comparing current (unhealthy) diets with what the <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/the-australian-dietary-guidelines">Australian Dietary Guidelines</a> recommend people should eat found that the healthy diet was 12–15% cheaper than unhealthy diets for a family of two adults and two children. However, learning and planning to prepare new types of meals <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/3/877">takes effort and time</a>. Simply educating people about what they should eat won’t necessarily result in healthier eating. People want to eat healthier, or at least know they should eat healthier, but other things <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00394-017-1458-3.pdf">get in the way</a>. A key to improving people’s eating behaviours is to make it easy to eat more healthily. Policy changes to make healthy eating easier could include subsidising healthier foods such as fresh produce, providing incentives for retailers to offer healthy options, and ensuring access to nutritious meals in schools and workplaces. <h2>So how can you make healthier food choices easier?</h2> Here are five tips for making healthy choices easier in your household: <ol> <li> If certain days of the week are particularly busy, with little time to prepare fresh food, plan to cook in bulk on days when you have more time. Store the extra food in the fridge or freezer for quick preparation. </li> <li> If you’re often pressed for time during the day and just grab whatever food is handy, have healthy snacks readily available and accessible. This could mean a fruit bowl in the middle of the kitchen counter, or wholegrain crackers and unsalted nuts within easy reach. </li> <li> Discuss food preferences with your family and come up with some healthy meals everyone likes. For younger children, <a href="https://healthykids.nsw.gov.au/downloads/file/campaignsprograms/NewFoodsFussyEaters.pdf">try serving</a> only a small amount of the new food, and serve new foods alongside foods they already like eating and are familiar with. </li> <li> If you rely a lot on take-away meals or meal delivery services, try making a list ahead of time of restaurants and meals you like that are also healthier. You might consider choosing lean meat, chicken, or fish that has been grilled, baked or poached (rather than fried), and looking for meals with plenty of vegetables or salad. </li> <li> Remember, fruit and vegetables taste better and are often cheaper when they are in season. Frozen or canned vegetables are a <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/the-cost-of-fresh-fruit-and-veggies-is-rising-is-canned-or-frozen-produce-just-as-healthy/tzuhnfrnr">healthy and quick alternative</a>.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/231489/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> </li> </ol> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/nina-van-dyke-822557">Nina Van Dyke</a>, Associate Professor and Associate Director, Mitchell Institute, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/victoria-university-1175">Victoria University</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-know-what-to-eat-to-stay-healthy-so-why-is-it-so-hard-to-make-the-right-choices-231489">original article</a>. </div>

Food & Wine

Still fab after 60 years: how The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night made pop cinema history

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/alison-blair-223267">Alison Blair</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-otago-1304">University of Otago</a> I first saw A Hard Day’s Night at a film festival over 20 years ago, at the insistence of my mum. By then, it was already decades old, but I remember being enthralled by its high-spirited energy. A Beatles fan, mum had introduced me to the band’s records in my childhood. At home, we listened to Please Please Me, the band’s 1963 single, and the Rubber Soul album from 1965, which I loved. Television regularly showed old black-and-white scenes of Beatlemania that, to a ten-year-old in the neon-lit 1980s, seemed like ancient history. But then, I’d never seen a full-length Beatles film. I had no idea what I was in for. When the lights went down at Dunedin’s Regent Theatre, the opening chord of the film’s title song announced its intentions: an explosion of youthful vitality, rhythmic visuals, comical high jinks and the electrifying thrill of Beatlemania in 1964. This time, it didn’t seem ancient at all. Since that first viewing, I’ve returned to A Hard Day’s Night again and again. I now show it to my students as a historically significant example of pop music film making – visually inventive cinema, emblematic of a fresh era in youth culture, popular music and fandom. <h2>Beatlemania on celluloid</h2> A musical comedy depicting a chaotic 36 hours in the life of the Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night has now reached its 60th anniversary. Directed by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0504513/">Richard Lester</a>, the film premiered in London on July 6 1964, with its first public screening a day later (incidentally, also Ringo Starr’s birthday), and the <a href="https://www.discogs.com/master/24003-The-Beatles-A-Hard-Days-Night">album of the same name</a> released on July 10. The band’s popularity was by then reaching dizzying heights of hysteria, all reflected in the film. The Beatles are chased by hordes of fans, take a train trip, appear on TV, run from the police in a Keystone Cops-style sequence, and play a televised concert in front of screaming real-life Beatles fans. Side one of the album provides the soundtrack, and the film inspired pop music film and video from then on, from the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060010/">Monkees TV series</a> (1966–68) to the Spice Girls’ <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120185/">Spice World</a> (1997) and music videos as we know them today. <h2>The original music video</h2> Postwar teen culture and consumerism had been on the rise since the 1950s. In 1960s Britain, youth music TV programmes, notably <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0196287/">Ready Steady Go!</a> (1963–66), meant pop music now had a developing visual culture. The youthful zest and vitality of ‘60s London was reflected in the pop-cultural sensibility, modern satirical humour and crisp visual impact of A Hard Day’s Night. Influenced by <a href="https://nofilmschool.com/french-new-wave-cinema">French New Wave</a> film making, and particularly the early 1960s work of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000419/">Jean-Luc Godard</a>, A Hard Day’s Night employs <a href="https://indiefilmhustle.com/cinema-verite/">cinéma vérité</a>-style hand-held cinematography, brisk jump cuts, unusual framing and dynamic angles, high-spirited action, and a self-referential nonchalance. The film also breaks the “fourth wall”, with characters directly addressing the audience in closeup, and reveals the apparatus of the visual performance of music: cameras and TV monitors are all part of the frame. Cutting the shots to the beat of the music – as in the Can’t Buy Me Love sequence – lends a visual rhythm that would later become the norm in music video editing. Lester developed this technique further in the second Beatles film, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059260/">Help!</a> (1965). The closing sequence of A Hard Day’s Night is possibly the film’s most dynamic: photographic images of the band edited to the beat in the style of stop-motion animation. Sixty years on, it still feels fresh, especially as so much contemporary film making remains hidebound by formulaic Hollywood rules. <figure class="align-center "><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/604790/original/file-20240704-17-ov77mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/604790/original/file-20240704-17-ov77mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/604790/original/file-20240704-17-ov77mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/604790/original/file-20240704-17-ov77mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/604790/original/file-20240704-17-ov77mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/604790/original/file-20240704-17-ov77mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/604790/original/file-20240704-17-ov77mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="A Hard Day's Night movie poster" /><figcaption>A new pop aesthetic: original film poster for A Hard Day’s Night. Getty Images</figcaption></figure> <h2>Slapstick and class awareness</h2> As with much popular culture from the past, the humour in A Hard Day’s Night doesn’t always doesn’t land the way it would have in 1964. And yet, there are moments that seem surprisingly modern in their razor-sharp irony. In particular, the band’s Liverpudlian working-class-lad jibes and chaotic energy contrast brilliantly with the film’s upper-class characters. Actor Victor Spinetti’s comically over-anxious TV director, constantly hand-wringing over the boys’ rebelliousness, underscores the era-defining change the Beatles represented. Corporate pop-culture consumerism is also satirised. John Lennon “snorts” from a Coca-Cola bottle, a moment so knowingly silly it registers as more contemporary than it really is. George Harrison deflects a journalist’s banal questions with scathingly witty answers, and cuts a fashion company down to size by describing their shirt designs as “grotesque”. And there is Paul McCartney’s running joke that his grandfather – played by Wilfred Brambell from groundbreaking sitcom <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057785/">Steptoe and Son</a> (1962–74) – is “very clean”. Even the film’s old-fashioned visual slapstick still holds up in 2024. Showing the film to this year’s students, I didn’t expect quite as much laughter when Ringo’s attempts to be chivalrous result in a fall-down-a-hole mishap. In 2022, the <a href="https://www.criterion.com/">Criterion Collection</a> released a high-resolution restoration of the film, so today A Hard Day’s Night can be seen in all its fresh, black-and-white, youthful vigour. Happy 60th, A Hard Day’s Night. And happy 84th, Ringo. Both still as lively and energetic as ever.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/228598/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/alison-blair-223267">Alison Blair</a>, Teaching Fellow in Music, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-otago-1304">University of Otago</a> Image credits: THA/Shutterstock Editorial This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/still-fab-after-60-years-how-the-beatles-a-hard-days-night-made-pop-cinema-history-228598">original article</a>. </div>

Movies

Aussies working in "priority occupations" eligible for cash increase

Thousands of hard-working Aussies who work in certain areas are now eligible for new training and support payments of up to $10,000. The initiative comes to support Australians working in sectors with a high demand for skilled workers, and a commitment to clean energy. From July 1st, thousands of apprentices working in what the government deems as “priority occupations” are eligible for the $5,000 Australian Apprenticeship Training Support Payment. If those priority occupations also offer exposure and experience in “clean energy”, apprentices are instead eligible for the more lucrative New Energy Apprenticeship Support Payment of up to $10,000. The list of "priority occupations" is extensive and includes aged care workers, arborists, bakers, beauty therapists and many more. According to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR), the jobs are characterised by a strong current demand for skilled workers, and a strong demand expected in the future. The clean energy jobs also include many different professions, with agricultural and agritech technicians, automotive electricians, regular electricians, gas fitters, glaziers, joiners, plumbers and welders all included. The full list of priority jobs can be found on the <a href="https://www.dewr.gov.au/skills-support-individuals/resources/appendix-australian-apprenticeship-priority-list-1-january-2024" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-link-type="article-inline">Department of Employment and Workplace Relations website.</a> For the Australian Apprenticeship Training Support Payment, the $5000 payment comes in four instalments over two years, while the New Energy Apprentice Support Payment is paid out over the course of the apprenticeship — up to $5000 for part-time apprentices and up to $10,000 for full-time apprentices. It is hoped the payments will incentivise apprentices to remain on the career pathway. Image credits: Shutterstock

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