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The study unveiling the decline in global physical activity was led by Barry Popkin, PhD, and Shu Wen Ng, PhD, both from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. The researchers examined data collected since the 1960’s on time-use in various countries. The studies were nationally representative and helped document how different people spent time working or being physically active.

The researchers discovered that entertainment technology was not the sole factor behind the global decline of physical activity. In fact, the modern way of life is causing the decline. Jobs and what tasks are required in an office have changed. More jobs are more sedentary and require less movement. At home, how people cook and clean has also changed dramatically.

Performing a task like cleaning the house requires a vacuum cleaner or some other aid that helps reduce the overall time spent doing physical work. If you are washing clothes, you can throw it in the washing machine or if you need to cook something, a microwave or stove makes that task even easier today than ever before. Cars and mass transit has made walking less of a requirement as well, further aiding in global inactivity.

For America, images of children sitting in front of televisions, computers or playing videogames are not uncommon but surprisingly, and while Americans perform the least physical activity on average, American adults are not the laziest around. Adults in the United Kingdom had lower physical activity levels than American adults according to the researchers.

In some countries, physical activity has sharply declined in recent years due to the shift from farming to manufacturing. China and Brazil had the largest declines due to this shift as more machines are being used to cut physical labor as well as more access to home technology and increased use of cars.

The researchers also projected that things will only get worse in the future. Researchers using the metabolic equivalent of task (MET), used to measure the amount of energy spent on completing a task, determined that by 2020 an average American will spend around 142 MET hours per week. According to the researchers, the British will reach those levels by 2030 and Brazil and China will have similar physical activity levels as Americans and the British by 2030 as well.

Physical activity can greatly impact obesity, high blood pressure and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Getting more active is an important, and simple, step to improve global health.

The study was published in Obesity Reviews.

Published by Medicaldaily.com

DEAR CARRIE: My 84-year-old mother-in-law works for a country club in the catering and restaurant division. She has worked there for 20 years and has used just four sick days. She works all holidays and even double shifts when called upon.

She recently tripped at work and missed three days because she hurt her knee. When she later called for her schedule, she was told the country club didn’t need her any longer. No one will say she is fired, just that she’s not needed.

She is distraught because she loved having a place to go three to four days a week. Does she have any recourse? — In-Law Done Wrong?

DEAR IN-LAW: She could have some recourse if she files a workers’ compensation claim, something she should do immediately, said employment lawyer Michael J. Borrelli of Borrelli & Associates in Great Neck. That could afford her some protection.

“New York State Workers’ Compensation Law . . . prohibits an employer from discharging or discriminating against an employee because such employee has claimed or is attempting to claim workers’ compensation benefits,” he said. “Thus, if the employer takes any adverse action against the employee because she has claimed or is attempting to claim benefits, it is illegal.”

He also said that if her injury qualifies as a disability under state law, the country club could be in violation of that law for letting her go.

“The term disability under the law means actual or perceived,” he said. “Thus, if the company believes that her injury will be a disabling condition that will interfere with her ability to work for them, they may be liable for disability discrimination.”

Short of the above, your mother-in-law may have no recourse, despite being a model employee. That’s because New York is an employment-at-will state, Borrelli noted. Under that doctrine, an employer can fire an employee at any time for no reason at all.

“The fact that this woman has worked for 20 years, has used only four sick days and does double shifts when called upon is admirable but has no legal ramifications on a company’s decision to make an employment decision,” he said.

While the company may have acted legally, repaying a longtime employee’s loyalty with a dismissal after an injury, I believe, is morally questionable.

DEAR CARRIE: My wife was recently laid off, and her employer terminated her health insurance coverage the next day. Is the former employer required to keep my wife on its health insurance until she makes a determination to elect or not elect COBRA? If she elects COBRA, would she be responsible for premiums retroactive to the time of her termination? — COBRA Query

DEAR COBRA: Unless a contract says so, companies are free to terminate health benefits when an employee leaves. Because benefits aren’t required by law, employers can set the terms for initiating the coverage or ending it.

But here’s the good news: The COBRA benefits would be retroactive to when her company benefits ended, which means she wouldn’t have a gap in her coverage, the U.S. Labor Department said. But she is responsible for the full cost. COBRA statutes give former employees access to their former employer’s group rates. But the ex-employees have to pay the entire price of the premium and up to 2 percent in administrative costs.

It is important to note that federal COBRA laws apply to employers with at least 20 workers. But New York State requires companies with fewer than 20 employees to provide the equivalent of COBRA benefits.

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Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/police-not-affected-by-workers-compensation-cuts-20120615-20dij.html#ixzz1xnuCBczA

ALBANY, NY (06/14/2012)(readMedia)– Two bills before the State Legislature could rollback cost savings created in the 2007 Workers’ Compensation reforms.

S.3749-C (Robach)/A.5183 (Simotas) would allow an injured employee to utilize any pharmacy that matched the state’s “published prices,” regardless of whether such pharmacy was in an employer’s network and offered “volume discounts” often significantly below “published prices”. The authorization of these pharmacy networks is one of the few parts of the system reform that was showing modest cost-savings of between 10 percent and 20 percent. This legislation would largely negate any benefit from the reform, by eliminating the basis on which networks would provide discounts.

Another attempt to rollback savings realized in the 2007 reforms, S.3741 (Maziarz)/ A.6294 (Wright), would prohibit any New York State Medical Treatment Guideline adopted by the Workers’ Compensation Board from being applied to injuries that occurred before the guideline’s adoption date. The guidelines, adopted in 2009 after a three year process involving input by a joint business/labor medical advisory committee and extensive public review and comment by all categories of medical professionals, are standards of care, identifying specific medical treatments that are considered appropriate and effective. Standards of health care are neither prospective nor retroactive, and any legislated arbitrary timeframe is completely contrary to evidence-based medical principles.

Regard of the outcome of these two bills, Workers’ Compensation rates continued to rise in New York. The amplified cost is driven by increases in maximum benefits indexed to increases in the state’s average weekly wage, and to the extremely slow pace and inefficient implementation of key system reform measures.

For example, in October 2011, the New York State Insurance Department approved an average rate increase of 9.1 percent, on the heels of a 7.7 percent increase in 2010. All told, between 2009 – 2012, rates have increased by 32.9 percent. Workers’ Compensation Board assessments, essentially a tax on workers’ compensation premiums have increased by 10.4 percent and 27 percent, respectively for the last two years. Employers are paying nearly 50 percent more of their compensation dollars in assessments to fund the system than they did three years ago.

These recent cost increases to the Workers’ Compensation system do nothing to help improve our states economic competitiveness and hurts New York-based businesses ability to create private-sector jobs. If we want to make New York a more business friendly state, we can start by letting the cost saving components of the 2007 Workers’ Compensation reforms take effect.