Childhood Obesity Is Rising ‘Shockingly Fast’ — Even in Poor Countries – NPR, October 17, 2019
According to a new global assessment of child malnutrition by UNICEF (the agency’s most comprehensive nutrition report in two decades), high rates of childhood obesity are a big problem in a rising number of low- and middle-income countries.
Rising Seas Will Erase More Cities by 2050, New Research Shows – The New York Times, October 29, 2019
The reason for posting this is not to have yet another piece on the catastrophic effects of climate change but to corroborate the point that it is accelerating—a fact that every business/investment decision must factor in. The article refers to new research showing that rising seas could affect three times more people by 2050 than previously thought: Currently, 150 million people are living on land that will be below the high-tide line by midcentury.
Why You Never See Your Friends Anymore – The Atlantic, November 2019
The hours in which we work, rest and socialize are becoming ever more desynchronized. In the US, for example, nearly a third of the labor force holds jobs with prolonged or variable hours. The consequences can be debilitating because “a calendar is more than the organization of days and months. It’s the blueprint for a shared life.” It may be that staggered and marathon work hours make us materially richer, but they also deprive us of what has been described as a “cultural asset of importance”: an “atmosphere of entire community repose.”
Why We Can’t Tell the Truth About Aging – The New Yorker, October 28, 2019
This is an exceptionally rich review of what the voluminous recent (and not so recent) literature tells us about aging—physically, mentally, psychologically, cognitively…A spate of new books is meant to reassure us that getting old just means that we have to work harder at staying young. Most authors aren’t blind to the perils of aging—they just prefer to see the upside, but often the optimistic narrative of pro-aging writers doesn’t line up with the dark story told by the human body.
Digital Dystopia: How Algorithms Punish the Poor – The Guardian, October 14, 2019
This is the introduction to a series of articles that lay bare the tech revolution transforming the welfare system worldwide while penalizing the most vulnerable in the process. It sometimes paints a picture of 21st-century Dickensian dystopia taking shape at breakneck speed. The American political scientist Virginia Eubanks has a phrase for it: “The digital poorhouse.”
A Striking Stat:
Yoga is now a $16.9 billion global market—with 165 million regular participants worldwide.
Source: Global Wellness Institute’s new Move To Be Well: The Global Economy of Physical Activity research report
