Todos los beneficios ambientales de pasarnos a una dieta basada en plantas

Source: The Conversation – (in Spanish) – By Noelia María Rodríguez Martín, Postdoctoral fellow, Instituto de la Grasa (IG – CSIC)

Pixel-Shot/Shutterstock

Nuestra dieta y cómo se producen los alimentos que incluye afecta a nuestra salud, pero también al medio ambiente. Aproximadamente un tercio de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero provocadas por el ser humano están relacionadas con el cultivo, el procesamiento, el transporte, la distribución y la preparación de los alimentos.

Aunque no todos ellos tienen el mismo impacto en el planeta. En un nuevo estudio hemos comprobado que adoptar una dieta basada en plantas tiene efectos ambientales positivos, como la reducción de hasta un 46 % en nuestra huella de carbono, es decir, las emisiones de dióxido de carbono asociadas a nuestra actividad diaria.

En el trabajo, simulamos cuatro menús reales e isocalóricos (2 000 kcal/día) de una semana con cuatro patrones: mediterráneo (omnívoro), pescovegetariano, ovolactovegetariano y patrón 100 % vegetal (que en nutrición tratamos como dieta vegana, aunque este término conlleva otras implicaciones filosóficas).

Evaluamos dos ejes esenciales: la adecuación nutricional (es decir, que el menú cubra los nutrientes que necesitamos) y huella ambiental (los recursos que se consumen desde el campo al plato y los residuos diarios que se generan). Esta última incluye el equivalente de dióxido de carbono emitido (CO₂e), el uso de suelo, el consumo de agua y efectos sobre ecosistemas y los efectos en la salud humana (emisión de ozono y partículas, eutrofización, ecotoxicidad).

Nutrición: lo justo y necesario

Los cuatro patrones de dieta cumplen en cuanto a macronutrientes y proteína. En cierto modo, esto último es lo que más preocupa cuando se habla de dieta 100 % vegetal. Esto se debe a que las proteínas vegetales no tienen una composición de aminoácidos esenciales completa, pero la combinación típica de legumbres y cereales (lentejas con arroz), completa la composición de la proteína.

Respecto a otros nutrientes importantes, los datos confirman lo esperado. Las dietas vegetales aumentan la fibra y reducen el aporte en las grasas saturadas, lo que supone un perfil lipídico más saludable. No obstante, es necesario tener en consideración algunos nutrientes en el modelo 100 % de dieta vegetal, como el yodo y la vitamina D –aunque ambos realmente se cubren a través del consumo de sal yodada y la exposición solar– y la vitamina B12, que debe suplementarse.

En los omega-3, representados por los ácidos eicosapentaenoico (EPA) y docosahexaenoico (DHA), ningún modelo de dieta alcanzó los 250 mg/día establecidos en las recomendaciones. No obstante, existen formas para enriquecer el menú, como por ejemplo, añadiendo pescado azul, consumiendo aceites de pescado o de microalgas (para la opción 100 % vegetal) y




Leer más:
Omega-3: cúanto hay que tomar y qué alimentos son los mejores para obtenerlo


El calcio que se aporta en las dietas sin lácteos puede equipararse al de una dieta con lácteos gracias al calcio contenido en las bebidas vegetales y tofu fortificados. En resumen, podemos decir que “más alimentos vegetales, sí, pero bien planificados”.

Impacto ambiental: la huella que no se ve

En cuanto a las emisiones, el impacto cae teóricamente a medida que el menú (la dieta) se hace más vegetal: hasta un 46 % menos de CO₂e en el patrón 100 % vegetal frente al omnívoro. Este descenso no solo implica una reducción del efecto en el calentamiento global, ya que una menor emisión de CO₂e suele también implicar menos precursores de ozono y menos partículas secundarias, y una mejora en la calidad del aire.

Además, el efecto alcanza a la tierra y la biodiversidad: los menús más vegetales reducen el uso de suelo entre un 20 % y un 33 %. Esto también es sumamente importante: liberar tierra alivia la presión sobre los hábitats y preserva servicios ecosistémicos clave, como la polinización y la regulación hídrica, un frente decisivo para frenar la pérdida de biodiversidad.

Otro indicador que evaluamos es el impacto del consumo de agua en una cuenca (AWARE). Este mide no solo los litros retirados (agua azul), sino también el impacto relativo de esa extracción según la escasez de la cuenca: cuánto reduce la disponibilidad para otras personas y para los ecosistemas. Aquí los cambios son moderados (baja un 5 % con la dieta 100 % vegetal) y dependen mucho del lugar y del método de cultivo. No todo el “agua” pesa igual: regar 100 litros en una zona seca supone un daño mayor que hacerlo en una cuenca húmeda. Por eso, elegir origen y prácticas agrícolas marca la diferencia.

Observamos también descensos en acidificación y eutrofización –liberación excesiva de nutrientes–, o lo que es lo mismo, menos presión sobre suelos y aguas, y también en ecotoxicidad. Esto implica menos contaminación difusa, menos estrés para ríos y mares y menor exposición humana a sustancias nocivas que viajan por la cadena alimentaria.

Ahora, un matiz con el pescado: los menús pescovegetarianos mejoran la mayoría de indicadores, pero pueden empeorar los relacionados con el ozono por la cadena de frío y los transportes largos. Aunque no todo el pescado tiene la misma huella; especie y origen, arte de pesca (mejor selectivas que de arrastre) y logística (proximidad, evitar transporte aéreo, cadenas cortas) marcan la diferencia en este contexto.




Leer más:
¿Pescado y marisco para Navidad? Cómo elegir el más saludable y sostenible según su etiqueta


Comparación de los efectos en el medio ambiente de las dietas pescetariana, ovolactovegetariana y 100% vegetal frente a una omnívora
Comparación de tres menús (pescetariano, ovolactovegetariano y 100% vegetal) frente a uno omnívoro, mostrando la reducción porcentual en once indicadores relacionados con la huella de carbono, efecto en el suelo y el agua y efecto en la salud humana y seres vivos. A mayor proporción de alimentos vegetales, mayores recortes en la huella.
Los autores, CC BY-SA

Cambios con efectos positivos reales

Lo que elegimos comer tres veces al día suma o resta frente al cambio climático y la pérdida de biodiversidad. Los menús más vegetales son una palanca inmediata y asequible tanto en casa como en comedores colectivos y compras públicas. Hablamos de impactos medibles: kilos de CO₂e evitados, metros cuadrados de suelo liberado y metros cúbicos de agua ahorrados.




Leer más:
Tres cambios cruciales en el sistema alimentario para no devorar el planeta


Además, esta transición permite avanzar hacia el cumplimiento de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) de la ONU en la vida real: ODS 3 (salud), ODS 12 (consumo responsable) y ODS 13 (acción climática). Para acelerar el cambio hacen falta reglas claras y un mercado alineado: etiquetado de huella de carbono e información sobre nutrientes críticos, compra pública baja en carbono y apoyo a alimentos vegetales mínimamente procesados con fortificación inteligente.

Avanzar hacia las dietas pescetariana, ovolactovegetariana y vegana reduce la huella de forma acumulativa. Pero podemos empezar por un menú mediterráneo bien hecho con un alto consumo de vegetales.

Si empezamos de cero, nos vendrá bien el apoyo de un dietista-nutricionista con experiencia en alimentación basada en vegetales para evitar carencias. A partir de ahí, vayamos a lo práctico: menos carne (sobre todo de rumiantes) y más legumbres, cereales integrales, fruta, verdura y frutos secos; priorizando origen y temporada y eligiendo alimentos fortificados cuando aporten valor. Con pequeños cambios constantes y medibles, nuestro plato puede recortar emisiones, dar respiro a suelos y ríos y mejorar el aire sin renunciar a una dieta completa.

The Conversation

Las personas firmantes no son asalariadas, ni consultoras, ni poseen acciones, ni reciben financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y han declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado anteriormente.

ref. Todos los beneficios ambientales de pasarnos a una dieta basada en plantas – https://theconversation.com/todos-los-beneficios-ambientales-de-pasarnos-a-una-dieta-basada-en-plantas-271861

Ver ‘Love Actually’ estas navidades podría ser bueno para su salud

Source: The Conversation – (in Spanish) – By María Vanessa Chávez Peña, Profesora y Coordinadora de prácticas del Máster Universitario en Psicología General Sanitaria, Universidad Europea

Emma Thompson en una escena de _Love Actually_. Working Title

Ya estamos en diciembre, ya es Navidad y ya ha aparecido Love actually en la parrilla televisiva. O tal vez lo haya hecho The Holiday. Incluso puede habérsenos cruzado por ahí Barcelona, noche de invierno. Todas son historias con múltiples personajes en crisis que, risas mediante, acabarán en un final feliz… en plenas fiestas.

Las comedias corales navideñas han consolidado su lugar como un subgénero cinematográfico que combina humor, emoción y múltiples perspectivas sobre las relaciones humanas. Las películas antes mencionadas se han convertido en clásicos recurrentes de la programación en estas fechas gracias a su capacidad de entrelazar historias diversas con un hilo común.

Tráiler de Barcelona, noche de invierno.

Los beneficios del cine

En el artículo “Once alternativas al cine navideño convencional”, publicado en The Conversation en 2022, se indicaba que el cine navideño no era tanto un género como una categoría particular. En ella caben filmes de toda la vida, estrenos ad hoc y clásicos modernos de diferentes registros; comedias, aventuras o dramas. Títulos como ¡Qué bello es vivir!, Los fantasmas atacan al jefe y El día de la bestia, aunque no sean comedias puras, comparten ese tono cálido y colectivo que define estas narrativas.

Por otro lado, en 2022, la Organización Mundial de la Salud informó de que la pandemia de covid-19 había aumentado en un 25 % la prevalencia de la ansiedad y la depresión a nivel mundial. Frente a ello, el entretenimiento audiovisual se convirtió en una vía de escape y regulación emocional. Porque, al final, el arte y la creatividad desempeñan un papel crucial en la resiliencia emocional, actuando como recursos terapéuticos durante situaciones de crisis.

Una mujer joven sonríe delante de un hombre mayor en traje.
¿A quién no le va a gustar ver a Kate Winslet en The Holiday hacerse amiga de un guionista del Hollywood clásico en plena Navidad en Los Ángeles?
Universal Pictures

En este sentido, investigaciones clínicas también han demostrado que el humor tiene un rol especialmente valioso en situaciones de crisis como la pandemia, sobre todo por su impacto positivo en la salud mental durante situaciones adversas. Diversas indagaciones concluyen que la risa ayuda a reducir los niveles de cortisol, la hormona del estrés. El humor funciona como una estrategia eficaz de afrontamiento y puede mejorar el bienestar psicológico general.

Se ha demostrado también que los entrenamientos terapéuticos basados en el humor mejoran significativamente la alegría y reducen síntomas depresivos. Igualmente, refuerzan la capacidad de los pacientes con ansiedad y depresión de afrontar sus emociones. Bajo estas circunstancias, el humor ha demostrado incluso ser un amortiguador eficaz contra el estrés percibido.

Múltiples oportunidades de identificación

En este escenario las comedias corales navideñas –aquellas que entrelazan múltiples historias con un tono festivo y humorístico– han adquirido una relevancia especial como vehículos de conexión emocional, resiliencia y bienestar.

Como dice la Real Academia Española (RAE), una de las acepciones de “coral” se refiere a una obra literaria o cinematográfica que tiene un protagonista plural o colectivo. Por ello, las películas corales en general, sean dramáticas, de acción o de ciencia ficción, permiten, con su multiplicidad de personajes y tramas, que los espectadores se vean reflejados en distintos aspectos y perspectivas de la historia. Así, cada uno puede encontrar en alguna de ellas un reflejo de sus propias vivencias.

Diversos estudios han sugerido que el cine puede ayudar a los pacientes a obtener una “descarga emocional”, es decir, una liberación de emociones intensas que han sido reprimidas, contenidas o acumuladas con el tiempo.

Además, el séptimo arte activa procesos empáticos que favorecen la introspección y el procesamiento emocional. Es una herramienta para integrar dimensiones cognitivas y afectivas, facilitando el desarrollo emocional del espectador.

Sentémonos en el sofá

Esto nos lleva a pensar que el disfrutón cine coral navideño no solo cumple una función recreativa. También se erige como una herramienta psicológica de gran valor en contextos de crisis. Su capacidad para generar emociones positivas, facilitar la identificación emocional y promover la conexión social lo convierte en un recurso relevante para el estudio del bienestar psicológico en la era pospandémica.

Reír juntos, sobre todo en la época navideña, no solo fortalece los lazos entre las personas, sino que también se convierte en el mejor antídoto para disipar la tristeza y llenar el corazón de alegría y esperanza.

Un clásico navideño: Hugh Grant bailando en Love Actually.

Como ocurre con la película Love Actually, donde cada historia detalla que el amor –en todas sus formas– es el mejor regalo, estas películas nos ofrecen el humor como vínculo universal. Además, al reunir a personajes de varias generaciones, el cine coral navideño se convierte en un espacio seguro donde podemos reír, recordar y, sobre todo, sentirnos acompañados.

En un contexto donde la salud mental se ha convertido en una prioridad global, podemos considerar que seguir las peripecias amorosas del primer ministro británico encarnado por Hugh Grant no solo entretiene… sino que también sana. Así que arrebujémonos en el sofá bajo una buena manta y veamos una película.

The Conversation

María Vanessa Chávez Peña no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.

ref. Ver ‘Love Actually’ estas navidades podría ser bueno para su salud – https://theconversation.com/ver-love-actually-estas-navidades-podria-ser-bueno-para-su-salud-268590

Europa busca reducir la brecha de género en las nóminas a través de la ley de transparencia salarial

Source: The Conversation – (in Spanish) – By Laura Pérez Ortiz, Profesora de Economía. Grupo de Investigación Socio Economía del Trabajo (SET-LASE), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Ink Drop / Shuptterstock

Entre el 17 de noviembre y el 31 de diciembre de 2025 las mujeres europeas trabajarán gratis, según denuncia la UE a través de la campaña #EUEqualPayDay. Esta injusticia se explica porque existe una brecha salarial entre hombres y mujeres del 12 %. Es decir, de media, por cada 100 euros que cobran los hombres las mujeres solo reciben 88. En España, esta brecha es del 9,2 %, según Eurostat.

Para visibilizar este problema, la Unión Europea promulgó la Ley de Transparencia Salarial, que debe trasponerse a la legislación de todos sus Estados miembros y que entrará en vigor en junio de 2026.

¿Por qué las mujeres y los hombres cobran diferente?

La brecha salarial se explica por las siguientes causas:

  • Hay una mayor proporción de mujeres que trabajan a tiempo parcial. El 20,1 % de las mujeres y el 6,7 % de los hombres trabajaron a tiempo parcial en el tercer trimestre de 2025, según la Encuesta de Población Activa. Esta diferencia se debe a que las mujeres siguen asumiendo mayores responsabilidades en las labores de los cuidados. El 27 % de las mujeres y tan solo el 9 % de los hombres que trabajan a tiempo parcial lo hacen para ocuparse de los cuidados y otras obligaciones familiares. Las mujeres solicitan más permisos, excedencias o reducciones de jornada para conciliar la vida personal y la laboral. Como es evidente, cuando una persona trabaja menos horas recibe un salario menor.

  • Los niveles salariales de los sectores masculinizados y feminizados son distintos. Los hombres trabajan más en la industria o la construcción y las mujeres en puestos de trabajo del sector servicios (sanidad, educación, empleo en el hogar, etc.). Este fenómeno se conoce como segregación horizontal. En términos generales, los trabajos feminizados requieren una menor cualificación e incorporan menos innovación tecnológica y, por lo tanto, una menor productividad y remuneración. Asimismo, son trabajos que se valoran menos.

  • Existen diferencias relevantes en las categorías profesionales que ocupan hombres y mujeres. Hay una mayor de presencia de hombres en los puestos de responsabilidad (dirección, gerencia). Por el contrario, hay una mayor representación de mujeres en puestos con menores responsabilidades (administración, puestos técnicos más bajos). Por lo tanto, los salarios son mayores para los hombres que para las mujeres. En este caso se habla de segregación vertical.

Otras razones que explican las brechas salariales son la edad, la formación, la antigüedad en el puesto de trabajo, etc. No obstante, persisten las diferencias salariales aunque se eliminen estas características. La evidencia empírica es abrumadora y se observa a nivel mundial, tanto en los países ricos como en los países en desarrollo.

La remuneración no es igual si el trabajo lo realiza un hombre o una mujer, incluso para el mismo empleo. La cultura organizativa, los estereotipos en los empleos, las diferencias en la flexibilidad y el diseño de complementos o extras salariales son constantes fuentes de discriminación salarial.

¿Por qué hay que eliminar la brecha salarial?

En primer lugar, la eliminación de la brecha salarial es una cuestión de justicia social y de equidad. Así lo reconocen múltiples agendas internacionales. El Convenio nº 100 sobre igualdad de remuneración de la Organización Internacional del Trabajo y los ODS 5 (Igual de género), ODS 8 (Empleo decente y crecimiento económico) y el ODS 10 (Reducir las desigualdades) de la Agenda 2030 de Naciones Unidas así lo expresan.

Adicionalmente hay razones económicas y monetarias que justifican la eliminación de las diferencias salariales. Si las mujeres perciben salarios inferiores pierden capacidad de compra, repercutiendo negativamente en el crecimiento de la economía, medido a través del PIB.




Leer más:
Indicadores económicos para un mundo en transformación: ¿Qué mide y qué no mide el PIB?


¿Qué proponen la OIT y la UE para reducir la brecha salarial?

El Convenio nº 100 de la OIT es uno de los principales instrumentos para eliminar la brecha salarial.

Una idea central para avanzar en la equiparación salarial es el principio de “igual salario para el mismo trabajo”. Esto significa suprimir la discriminación directa. Pero también hay que asegurar una “remuneración igual por trabajo del mismo valor”, es decir, eliminar la discriminación indirecta que proviene de la desigual participación en el mercado de trabajo.

Para evaluar el valor del trabajo, la OIT propone fijarse en competencias, cualificaciones, responsabilidades, esfuerzo y condiciones de trabajo.

La UE asume estos principios de igualdad de retribución entre trabajadores y trabajadoras por un trabajo igual o de igual valor en el [artículo 157] del Tratado de Funcionamiento de la Unión Europea. Además, aprobó la Estrategia Europea para la Igualdad de Género 2020-2025 que busca garantizar la igualdad de participación y de oportunidades en el mercado laboral. Esta estrategia establece la necesaria eliminación de la brecha retributiva de género. Finalmente, la Unión Europea ha aprobado la Directiva 2023/970 sobre Transparencia Salarial.

¿Qué hace España para reducir la brecha salarial?

España ya tiene gran parte del trabajo hecho. La Ley de Igualdad de 2007 y el Real Decreto 902/2020, de igualdad retributiva entre mujeres y hombres, introducen gran parte de las exigencias internacionales y de la Directiva de la UE.

También existen herramientas de transparencia retributiva, como la valoración de puestos de trabajo, los registros y las auditorías retributivas. El Instituto de las Mujeres pone todas estas herramientas a disposición en su página web. Además, se han elaborado de forma conjunta por los agentes sociales en la mesa de diálogo social, por lo que su aceptación es mayor.

Implicaciones de la aplicación de la directiva europea

La trasposición de la directiva europea a la legislación española incorporará novedades a la regulación existente. Algunas de ellas son la obligación de introducir una banda salarial en las ofertas de empleo, reforzar las sanciones por incumplimientos o ampliar los seguimientos y revisiones periódicas para los registros retributivos.

Estas medidas contribuirán a la igualdad retributiva, pero también a la igualdad de género y a tener una sociedad más justa para todo el mundo.

The Conversation

Las personas firmantes no son asalariadas, ni consultoras, ni poseen acciones, ni reciben financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y han declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado anteriormente.

ref. Europa busca reducir la brecha de género en las nóminas a través de la ley de transparencia salarial – https://theconversation.com/europa-busca-reducir-la-brecha-de-genero-en-las-nominas-a-traves-de-la-ley-de-transparencia-salarial-268229

¿Por qué no es recomendable descargar la cisterna con la tapa del inodoro levantada?

Source: The Conversation – (in Spanish) – By Raúl Rivas González, Catedrático de Microbiología. Miembro de la Sociedad Española de Microbiología., Universidad de Salamanca

Parkin Srihawong/Shutterstock

Todos hacemos caca es el incuestionable título de un clásico libro infantil escrito por el japonés Taro Gomi. Por desgracia, no todos los inodoros ofrecen una buena descarga para eliminar los restos fecales. Además, el vaciado del inodoro es una fuente potencial de transmisión de microorganismos infecciosos, porque puede generar grandes cantidades de aerosoles que contienen microbios. Ante esa realidad, ¿hay diferencia entre bajar la tapa del inodoro o dejarla levantada?

El dilema es relativamente nuevo. Hacia el año 315 (siglo IV), Roma tenía alrededor de 150 letrinas públicas, a menudo ubicadas cerca de baños públicos, y muchas de ellas contaban con largos bancos de mármol para uso comunitario. En aquel escenario, la socialización prevalecía ante la privacidad. Y continuo siendo de esa manera durante bastantes décadas.

Pasados unos cuantos siglos, la situación ha cambiado mucho, pero aún así, todavía hay más de 3 000 millones de personas en todo el mundo que no tienen acceso a baños seguros y limpios. ¡Más de un tercio de la población mundial! Los cientos de millones de personas que a estas alturas siguen sin disponer de inodoros se ven obligados a defecar en público o al aire libre, por ejemplo, en las cunetas de las calles, entre los arbustos o en aguas abiertas. Esto causa graves problemas de salud pública, al propagar patógenos fecales que contaminan el agua, el suelo y los alimentos, a la vez que genera sentimientos significativos de vulnerabilidad, vergüenza e impotencia, y provoca importantes problemas sociales, especialmente para mujeres y niñas, que se enfrentan a un mayor riesgo de violencia sexual y humillación.

En este contexto tiene sentido que “El retrete es un lugar para la paz y el progreso” fuese el lema del Día Mundial del Retrete en 2024, promovido por la ONU, para destacar el saneamiento seguro como un derecho humano fundamental.

La invención del inodoro con cisterna

Al parecer, el mérito de inventar el precursor del inodoro con cisterna recae en Sir John Harington, ahijado de Isabel I, quien en 1592 diseñó un aparato con una cisterna elevada y un pequeño tubo por el que el agua arrastraba los desechos. Sin embargo, el ingenio fue ignorado durante casi dos siglos. Resurgió con fuerza en 1775, cuando el relojero y mecánico escocés Alexander Cumming resolvió un problema clave, al desarrollar y patentar el tubo de desagüe con forma de “S” (o sifón) situado bajo el retrete, cuya función era crucial para sellar y eliminar de manera efectiva los malos olores.

Además de los malos olores, de los inodoros escapan también aerosoles cargados de microorganismos. Entre otros, diversas especies bacterianas de los géneros Aeromonas, Bacillus, Campylobacter, Clostridium, Escherichia, Klebsiella, Pseudomonas, Salmonella, Serratia, Shigella o Staphylococcus. De hecho, numerosos estudios han demostrado que la descarga del inodoro puede formar estos aerosoles debido al movimiento del agua: burbujeo, remolinos y salpicaduras, provocando la emisión de aerosoles que contienen microorganismos intestinales o urinarios.

El peligro de los baños públicos no ventilados

En 2015, un estudio confirmó la contaminación por Escherichia coli patógena y resistente a los antimicrobianos en 56 baños públicos del área metropolitana de Minneapolis-St. Paul en Minnesota (Estados Unidos).

Los baños públicos no ventilados, o con ventilación insuficiente, plantean un mayor riesgo de infección cruzada. De hecho, las áreas cercanas a todo tipo de inodoros y urinarios suelen presentar una contaminación alta, lo que indica que necesitan regímenes de limpieza estrictos.

La transmisión en estos casos no se previene evitando tocar el retrete o sentarse en él, como solemos pensar. Los microorganismos se pueden transmitir también por acumulación de patógenos en el cuerpo y en la ropa del usuario a través de la aerosolización durante la descarga del inodoro o el urinario, es decir, al tirar de la cisterna. También se puede transmitir por la inhalación directa de aerosoles o la transmisión indirecta tras la deposición de patógenos aerosolizados en diversas superficies del baño como toallas, pastillas de jabón contaminadas, la manija de la cisterna, los grifos o los propios pomos de las puertas.

Muchos patógenos entéricos se encuentran en alta concentración en las heces y, por lo tanto, en los inodoros después de la defecación, particularmente durante episodios de diarrea aguda. Por ejemplo, una persona infectada llega a eliminar hasta 100.000 millones de unidades formadoras de colonias (UFC) de Salmonella y Shigella por heces. Las personas infectadas con virus entéricos pueden eliminar 1 billón de virus por gramo de heces. Tras la descarga, las bacterias y los virus pueden dispersarse en las partes externas del inodoro y otras superficies del baño.

Bajar la tapa del inodoro reduce los aerosoles, pero no los elimina

Varios estudios informan de que bajar la tapa del inodoro reduce la cantidad de gotas visibles y pequeñas durante y después de la descarga entre un 30 % y un 60 %. Por esta razón, los especialistas médicos y de salud pública tradicionalmente han aconsejado cerrar la tapa del inodoro antes de tirar de la cadena. Sin embargo, un problema que a menudo se pasa por alto es que un porcentaje importante de los aerosoles se escapa a través del espacio de aire entre la taza y el asiento, incluso con la tapa cerrada.

Parece ser que son necesarios datos adicionales sobre el papel de la tapa del inodoro como una medida de control. De lo que no cabe ninguna duda es que la desinfección habitual de todas las superficies del baño es aconsejable para reducir la potencial contaminación viral y bacteriana.

The Conversation

Raúl Rivas González no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.

ref. ¿Por qué no es recomendable descargar la cisterna con la tapa del inodoro levantada? – https://theconversation.com/por-que-no-es-recomendable-descargar-la-cisterna-con-la-tapa-del-inodoro-levantada-271999

How a healthy gut could help your baby sleep better

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Manal Mohammed, Senior Lecturer, Medical Microbiology, University of Westminster

morrowlight/Shutterstock

When babies struggle with poor sleep, parents often suffer right alongside them. Growing evidence shows that a baby’s gut health plays a key role in comfort, digestion and overall sleep quality. Supporting a healthy gut microbiome may help babies sleep better, which can bring much-needed relief to exhausted parents.

Newborns are not born with a fully developed sleep-wake cycle and many rely on cues from feeding, contact and environmental rhythms. Strengthening the gut microbiome can support more settled sleep. The following approaches are backed by emerging research.

Breastfed babies, if doing so is possible, tend to have better sleep patterns and a more stable sleep-wake cycle than infants fed adapted formula. Breast milk naturally contains beneficial bacteria that help seed the infant gut, as well as human milk oligosaccharides, which are specialised carbohydrates found only in human milk.

Babies cannot digest them, but beneficial gut bacteria can. These oligosaccharides act as prebiotics, feeding helpful gut bacteria such as Bifidobacteria and Lactobacillus. They also help protect the gut lining and block harmful microbes from attaching to it.

Breast milk also delivers hormonal signals that influence sleep, including melatonin and tryptophan. These can help infants settle more easily and form more regular rhythms over time. Even partial breastfeeding can offer these benefits.

Allow skin-to-skin and close contact

Physical closeness, also known as kangaroo care, helps transfer healthy maternal microbes and supports sleep regulation. Skin-to-skin contact stabilises an infant’s temperature, breathing and heart rate. These steady physiological rhythms reduce energy expenditure and help babies reach calmer, more predictable states that support sleep development.

Baby sleeping against woman's chest

Anatta_Tan/Shutterstock

Studies show that an infant’s temperature can shift by one to two degrees Celsius during skin-to-skin contact, and the caregiver’s body adjusts through close thermal coupling to help keep the baby within a comfortable range. This reduces the effort required from the infant to maintain their own temperature.

Skin-to-skin contact also reduces signs of stress and helps babies settle more easily into sleep. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system, sometimes called rest-and-digest mode, which supports digestion and relaxation. Close contact also boosts oxytocin, reducing crying and encouraging feeding, which indirectly supports sleep.

Avoid over-sanitising

Normal home-level exposure to skin bacteria, family members and pets helps diversify the infant microbiome. This does not mean all forms of close contact are risk free. Very young babies are more vulnerable to infections such as HSV, which can be transmitted through saliva, so caregivers who are unwell or have active cold sores should avoid kissing newborns and keep hands clean during feeding.




Read more:
Why you should never kiss a baby


Routine use of antibacterial soaps and antibacterial wipes is not recommended unless necessary, for example when cleaning up bodily fluids, dealing with known infections in the household or following medical advice after surgery or immune-related conditions.

Support the microbiome through solids

Once a baby is developmentally ready, usually after six months, fibre-rich foods such as mashed beans, peas, lentils, sweet potato, oats and bananas can help nourish the gut.

Foods containing natural probiotics can be introduced once a baby has begun solids, provided they are offered in small amounts and prepared appropriately.

Plain yogurt is usually suitable from six months, as are fermented dairy products such as kefir when they are unsweetened and have a safe texture – smooth, runny or spoonable with no lumps – so that it can be swallowed easily and does not pose a choking risk. Other fermented foods, such as small tastes of fermented vegetable brine, should be low in salt and sugar and blended or thinned to an appropriate consistency.

Introducing allergens such as peanut and egg early, in line with current paediatric guidelines, also helps support immune balance.




Read more:
Are peanut allergies actually declining?


Use antibiotics only when needed

Antibiotics can disrupt the gut microbiome by reducing microbial diversity, lowering levels of beneficial bacteria and allowing less helpful strains to dominate. They should never be avoided when medically necessary, but unnecessary courses should be minimised. Because antibiotics can deplete helpful gut bacteria, some parents consider using probiotics to support recovery.

Certain probiotic supplements may reduce colic and support sleep by improving gut comfort. Commonly studied infant strains include Lactobacillus reuteri and Bifidobacterium infantis.

These strains feed on human milk oligosaccharides, support digestion and help maintain gut barrier function. They may also reduce inflammation and produce metabolites such as short-chain fatty acids, which nourish the cells lining the gut and support immune regulation. Medical guidance is essential before introducing any supplements.

Watch for gut-disrupting issues

Healthy digestion supports better sleep and can be aided by effective burping, avoiding overfeeding and monitoring for possible food intolerances such as cow’s milk protein sensitivity. Addressing discomfort early can prevent sleep disruption. Tracking patterns around feeds, nappies and crying spells can help identify symptoms that cluster at particular times of day.

Persistent arching, pulling legs to the chest, vomiting after most feeds or stools containing mucus can signal a problem beyond routine wind. Reflux, constipation and transient lactose overload – when milk moves through the gut too quickly for the lactose to be fully digested, leading to gas, frothy stools and discomfort – are common culprits.

Allow pet exposure

Household dog exposure is linked to more robust infant microbiomes and may support healthier immune outcomes. Dogs introduce a wider range of environmental microbes into the home during a sensitive developmental window. There is no need to get a pet solely for this purpose, but research suggests that normal interaction with existing pets could be beneficial.

A smiling infant and ginger corgi pembroke lying together on a white sheet.

Regina Burganova/Shutterstock

Routine contact such as supervised play, shared floor space and the general messiness that comes with pets can all contribute. Sensible hygiene still applies. Wash hands after handling food bowls or dog waste and keep pets out of sleeping spaces.

Regulate the sleep environment

Predictable routines reduce stress and support more settled sleep. Creating a stable sleep environment helps lower arousal levels, which can otherwise unsettle digestion.

Aim for a consistent room temperature, dim lighting and a calm wind-down routine that signals the shift from stimulation to rest. White noise can mask household sounds that might otherwise wake a baby. Try to keep overnight interactions low key with minimal talking and gentle movements. These cues form a stable pattern that supports deeper, more restorative sleep.

While no single strategy guarantees perfect nights, these evidence-informed practices work together to support a healthier gut and a more settled baby. When babies sleep better, parents finally get the rest they need too.

The Conversation

Manal Mohammed does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

ref. How a healthy gut could help your baby sleep better – https://theconversation.com/how-a-healthy-gut-could-help-your-baby-sleep-better-271445

Healthy habits and the holiday season: Tips for families to navigate eating, physical activity and sleep

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Holly Noelle Schaafsma, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Guelph

The holiday season is a time of exciting activities, family get-togethers and a time away from the normal work and school routine. As a result, your family, like many others, may feel like your usual routines are lost in the holiday hustle. Possible disruptions that can affect well-being and cause household stress include irregular meals, more snacking and screen time and later bedtimes.

The good news is, integrating simple, healthy household habits over the holidays can help your family maintain healthy eating, sleep and activity behaviours to feel your best during this busy holiday season.

As registered dietitians and family health researchers, we have conducted studies on family health and learned a number of effective strategies that can help your family create healthy habits. Here are our three top tips to help your family maintain healthy eating, physical activity and sleep habits while still enjoying everything this special season has to offer.

1. Make meals a family affair

Hectic schedules during the holidays can make it feel almost impossible to find time to cook and sit down for a family meal. However, during the holiday season, when there are many chances to snack on cookies and candies, making time to sit down for at least one family meal a day is key. This simple habit helps your family maintain healthier eating patterns and gives everyone a valuable chance to connect.

Remember, the family meal doesn’t have to happen at dinner time. Work around your holiday schedule; if breakfast together works best, that’s great.

Involve the whole family, including young children, in food preparation. This can include holiday baking, cooking a family meal or making a dish for a holiday get-together. Involving children in meal preparation, such as stirring food, measuring ingredients or even helping with grocery shopping, can improve their likelihood of trying the food they create and may reduce picky eating.

For ideas on simple, family-friendly recipes with tips for involving kids, check out the series of free cookbooks developed by researchers at the Guelph Family Health Study.

2. Find moments to move, play and unplug

Get outside! Children who spend more time outside are more physically active. Spending time in nature also supports brain development and helps kids relax.

Plan a family hike, go skating and sledding; walk to nearby events and through your neighbourhood to enjoy holiday lights. These brief opportunities for movement add up!

When it’s time to come inside to warm up, have a plan for screen time. Children spend less time in front of screens when their parents set screen time limits. While this may sound like a tough feat during the school break, setting specific screen-time limits for the holiday season can help kids know what to expect, which may reduce day-to-day arguments about screens.

Keep meals screen-free. Turn off the TV and put phones and tablets in a designated place away from where you eat.

Setting screen limits doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy your favourite holiday movies. Purposeful, time-limited screen use has its benefits. In fact, co-viewing movies or TV together has been associated with many cognitive benefits for kids. Asking content-related “what if” and “why” questions can help develop vocabulary and critical thinking.

3. Balance festivities with family sleep routines

A good night’s sleep can help everyone, parents included, make the most of the holiday season. Children with sufficient sleep report less stress and hyperactivity, and better physical and mental health. Depending on their age, children and adolescents need between eight and 17 hours of sleep per day, while adults need seven to nine hours of sleep. Research shows that one in four children are not getting enough sleep.

Between festivities, keeping a consistent bedtime routine can help your children get enough sleep. Make time to unwind from a busy day with calm, screen-free activities such as reading a book before going to bed.

Maintaining a consistent bedtime routine can also help children fall asleep when sleeping away from home. Giving children a “few-minutes warning” can help them navigate their emotions when it’s time to stop a fun activity to get ready for bed. Children who are more sensitive to change may need extra closeness with their parents to feel safe and fall asleep in a new environment.

We hope these simple routines can help your family connect, slow down and find joy even during the busiest days of the holidays.

The Conversation

Jess Haines receives funding from Canadian Institutes of Health Research, National Institutes of Health, Danone Institute International, Protein Industries Canada, Health Canada, and Canadian Foundation for Dietetic Research.

Kathryn Walton receives funding from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the New Frontiers in Research Fund and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Raphaëlle Jacob received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Holly Noelle Schaafsma does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

ref. Healthy habits and the holiday season: Tips for families to navigate eating, physical activity and sleep – https://theconversation.com/healthy-habits-and-the-holiday-season-tips-for-families-to-navigate-eating-physical-activity-and-sleep-271723

Karoline Leavitt’s White House briefing doublethink is straight out of Orwell’s ‘1984’

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Laura Beers, Professor of History, American University

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during the daily press briefing on Nov. 4, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

During a press conference on Dec. 11, 2025, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced there was good news on the state of the economy.

“Inflation as measured by the overall CPI has slowed to an average 2.5% pace,” she said, referring to the consumer price index. “Real wages are increasing roughly $1,200 dollars for the average worker.”

When CNN political correspondent Kaitlan Collins attempted to ask a follow-up question, Leavitt pivoted to an attack. Not on Collins, a frequent target of White House ire, but on Leavitt’s predecessor in the Biden White House, Democrat Jen Psaki.

Psaki, claimed Leavitt, stood at the same lectern a year before and told “utter lies.” In contrast, Leavitt insisted, “Everything I’m telling you is the truth backed by real, factual data, and you just don’t want to report on it ’cause you want to push untrue narratives about the president.”

The “real, factual data” that underpinned Leavitt’s statement was specious at best. The actual inflation rate for September was 3%, not the 2.5% figure cherry-picked from economic data. The rise in real wages? CNN business editor David Goldman writes that in the past year, U.S. workers have experienced “the lowest annual paycheck growth that Americans have had since May 2021.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks to the media on Dec. 11, 2025.

I’m a historian who has written about the enduring legacy of George Orwell’s ideas about truth and freedom. Listening to Leavitt assert a “truth” so obviously discordant with people’s lives, I was reminded of the repeated pronouncements from the Ministry of Plenty in Orwell’s “1984.”

“The fabulous statistics continued to pour out of the telescreen,” Orwell wrote. “As compared with last year there was more food, more clothes, more houses, more furniture, more cooking-pots, more fuel, more ships, more helicopters, more books, more babies — more of everything except disease, crime, and insanity. Year by year and minute by minute, everybody and everything was whizzing rapidly upwards.”

The novel’s doomed hero, Winston Smith, works in the Records Department that produces these fraudulent statistics – figures that are so far divorced from reality that they “had no connection with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connection that is contained in a direct lie.”

In the world of “1984,” not only are statistics invented, they are continually reinvented to serve the needs of Big Brother’s regime at any given moment: “All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.”

Transparency as doublespeak

The lack of transparency depicted in “1984” has an uncanny echo in our current political moment, despite Leavitt’s repeated assertions that President Donald Trump is the “most transparent president in history.”

Leavitt has made that claim countless times, including in her public defense of Trump’s “Quiet, Piggy!” dismissal of Bloomberg News journalist Catherine Lucey last month.

In Leavitt’s usage, “transparency” has become a form of Orwellian “doublespeak,” a word or phrase which through the process of “doublethink” had come to encompass its exact opposite meaning.

Doublethink,” in Orwell’s writing, was the mechanism of thought manipulation that allowed someone “to know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them.”

Doublethink was the mechanism that enabled the citizens of Oceania, the Anglo-American superstate governed by Big Brother’s authoritarian regime, to accept that “WAR IS PEACE; FREEDOM IS SLAVERY; IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”

And it is the mechanism that allowed Leavitt to proclaim, in defending Trump’s unwillingness to release the Epstein files, “This administration has done more with respect to transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein than any administration ever.” That claim was pronounced “fabulously audacious” by The Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith, in a story headlined “Nothing to see here: Trump press chief in full denial mode over Epstein.”

President Ronald Reagan records a radio address on foreign policy on Sept. 24, 1988, in which he discussed “our philosophy of peace through strength.”

Making ‘lies sound truthful and murder respectable’

In his famous essay “Politics and the English Language,” Orwell wrote that “political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

Over the past 10 months, Leavitt has, among other things, claimed that the now dismantled U.S. Agency for International Development – USAID – provided a grant of $32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru. Not true. She has misrepresented the “One Big Beautiful Bill” as fully eliminating taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security. In reality, deductions for these are capped. She claimed that Trump coined the motto “peace through strength.” He didn’t. The phrase has been in circulation for decades, used most prominently by Ronald Reagan during his presidency.

And she recently sought to delegitimize U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly and colleagues’ plea to servicemen and women not to obey illegal orders by suggesting tautologically that “all lawful orders are presumed to be legal by our servicemembers,” and hence Kelly’s plea could only serve to provoke “disorder and chaos.”

All governments lie. But Leavitt has become a master of the art of political language, wielded to aggrandize her boss, belittle his opponents and deflect attention from administration scandals.

The Conversation

Laura Beers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

ref. Karoline Leavitt’s White House briefing doublethink is straight out of Orwell’s ‘1984’ – https://theconversation.com/karoline-leavitts-white-house-briefing-doublethink-is-straight-out-of-orwells-1984-270675

Which countries people are fleeing from – and why

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sanwal Hussain, PhD Candidate in the Department of Politics and Society, Aston University

A group of refugees near the border between Serbia and Croatia in 2015. Ajdin Kamber / Shutterstock

The US government halted all applications for green cards, citizenship and asylum from 19 mostly African and Middle Eastern countries on December 2. This move came a week after President Donald Trump announced he would “permanently pause migration” from all “third-world countries” after two national guard members in Washington were shot by an Afghan national.

A cornerstone of Trump’s 2024 presidential election campaign was his promise to deport record numbers of migrants. And in September, his administration claimed to be on track to deport nearly 600,000 people by the end of Trump’s first year in office. But these latest announcements are a sharp escalation.

Regardless of what this will all mean for migrants in the US moving forward, it has drawn renewed global attention to migration. So what are some of the countries people have been fleeing from in recent years, and why are they taking the decision to do so?

Afghanistan

Afghanistan has one of the largest displaced populations in the world. Four decades of conflict and instability have contributed to a situation where, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), up to 1 million Afghan men migrate annually.

These people are mostly aged between 18 and 26 and migrate via informal means to neighbouring Iran and Pakistan, as well as westward predominantly to Turkey, the Gulf region, Europe and the US. Women and girls generally constitute only a small proportion of the migration flows.

The number of people fleeing Afghanistan surged in 2021, when the Taliban took back control of the country after a 20-year insurgency against US and Nato forces. The IOM estimated that approximately 20,000 to 30,000 Afghan nationals were migrating abroad each week around the time the Taliban captured the capital of Kabul.

Around 180,000 Afghans were resettled in the US under Biden-era programmes to help people who had worked with allied forces during the war escape. The US has now effectively ended these programmes.

Since 2021, tens of thousands more Afghan migrants have been resettled in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Brazil. They have arrived under schemes similar to those introduced by the US, as well as by seeking asylum through more conventional routes.

Migration from Afghanistan is being driven primarily by the pursuit of safety and economic security. When the Taliban first ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, it completely excluded women from public life – banning their education and employment.

The Taliban authorities also prohibited music, visual arts, paintings and even poetry. And it enforced harsh criminal punishments for people accused of adultery, including public floggings and stonings.

Since 2021, the Taliban has reintroduced many of these policies. Women are banned from education beyond primary school, as well as employment and public spaces. They cannot move freely in public without a male guardian.

Amnesty International says the Taliban has carried out arbitrary arrests, forcible disappearances and torture. It claims former government employees, human rights defenders and journalists have been executed without trial.

At the same time, the economic situation is dire. The Afghan economy has long depended on foreign assistance, which has been disrupted as a result of sanctions against the Taliban. In 2024, the UN reported that approximately 85% of Afghans live on less than US$1 a day (£0.75).

Iran

In Afghanistan’s westerly neighbour Iran, many people are also choosing to flee. Around 2.2 million Iranians left the country in 2022, with research out of Tehran’s Sharif University finding that 62% of those currently living abroad have no intention of returning.

Many of the people leaving Iran are young professionals or students. In 2024, Iranian state media reported that approximately 110,000 students had left the country to study abroad that year, with Europe and the US popular destinations.

Others resort to illegal migration. Between January 2023 and March 2024, around 20,000 Iranian nationals applied for asylum in the EU, while approximately 62,000 have sought asylum in the UK over the past decade – more than any other nationality.

The decision of Iranians to flee appears to stem from a loss of hope in change. Iran’s authorities have consistently responded to protests violently, most recently killing more than 500 people in a crackdown on the Women, Life, Freedom movement. This nationwide movement was sparked by the death of a 22-year-old Iranian girl called Mahsa Amini in police custody in 2022.

Beyond state repression, many Iranians are struggling to find jobs in an economy that has been severely weakened by years of western sanctions. And even those who do have jobs are gradually seeing their quality of life eroded by high inflation rates. Cultural restrictions, such as a ban on modern dress and western music, are also a source of frustration for people.

Pakistan

Nearly 3 million Pakistani nationals have moved away from their country in the past three years. Many of these people are skilled workers seeking opportunities in Australia, Canada, Europe, the UK or US. Others, usually unskilled workers, are migrating to the Gulf region.

The number of students in Pakistan going abroad for their studies is also on the rise. Visas issued to Pakistani students in the UK, for example, have grown from less than 5,500 in 2019 to over 35,500 in 2024.

The desire of many Pakistanis to live abroad is largely the result of their country’s weak economy, which has become characterised by high inflation, substantial public debt and limited job opportunities.

At the same time, the Pakistani government has introduced various authoritarian laws in recent years. This has included a bill passed in January 2025 that criminalised online disinformation – a law its critics say is designed to quash dissent.

Pakistan’s government has also installed a national internet firewall, enabling the authorities to monitor online traffic and regulate the use of popular apps. The initiative has sparked concerns about its potential to stifle protest.

With reduced space to demand change from their government, many people in Pakistan are seeing no option but to move abroad.

The Conversation

Sanwal Hussain does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

ref. Which countries people are fleeing from – and why – https://theconversation.com/which-countries-people-are-fleeing-from-and-why-268930

Child poverty: how bad is it in the UK?

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Regina Murphy Keith, Senior Lecturer in Food, Nutrition and Public Health, University of Westminster

komokvm/Shutterstock

The UK government recently unveiled its child poverty strategy, with the removal of the two-child limit on benefits payments as the centrepiece.

What’s sobering is how desperately the UK needs a strategy to address child poverty. At the end of 2024, four and a half million children – 31% of all UK children – were in relative poverty, meaning that they live in households earning less than 60% of the UK’s median income.

And 18% of all children were growing up in food-insecure households, without consistent access to nutritious food.

Ladywell, in Birmingham, has the highest levels, with 62% of children living in relative poverty. In some areas of Leeds, London, Bradford, Manchester and Liverpool over half of children live in poverty. Nearly half of Asian British and Black British children are in poverty, as are 43% of children in single-parent families.

This problem isn’t limited to the UK. Research by Unicef found that 23% of the children in 37 surveyed high-income countries live in poverty. But while relative poverty in these countries declined by an average of 2.5% between 2013 and 2023, in the UK it rose by 34%.

Within the UK, Scotland reduced child poverty in 2025, thanks to policies such as the monthly Scottish child payment of £27.15 for all children under 16. Payments also go to those expecting a baby and during the baby’s first year of life, to support the health and nutrition of mothers and infants.

One in five Scottish children still live in poverty, but Scotland has kept child poverty levels stable in the last decade.

In England, policies such as the two child limit and the cap on total benefits payments, combined with reductions in spending, have led to rising levels of child poverty. Unicef estimate that as these there has been a real terms decrease in spending of around £3.6 billion on policies that support children.

Children eating at school
Free school meals can help families.
Kuznetsov Alexey/Shutterstock

Another challenge families have is the high cost of childcare. This reduces the number of women who return to work after having children, limiting family income. While an increase in government-funded hours of childcare has reduced costs in England for children aged under two, for those parents of three- and four-year-olds who already received a subsidy costs have gone up, as they in Wales and Scotland.

Testimonies from children collected by the Children’s Commissioner for England lay the problem of child poverty bare. A 14-year-old girl explained how she worried her family wouldn’t have enough to eat. “We do try as much as possible to save up what we have,” she said.

“Every time I got [food packages] the food was always out of date and mouldy,” said an 11-year-old boy. “I know I’m poor but I’m not going to eat mouldy food.”

What works

The government’s recent budget included the significant step of lifting the two-child cap on benefits, which limited the means-tested support that families could receive from the state to the first two children in a household. The removal of this limit will lift around 500,000 children out of poverty.

The government has also pledged to reduce the time families live in temporary housing such as bed and breakfasts. From 2026, free school meals will be available to all children in families on universal credit. This is progress – but children will still slip through the cracks.

It’s estimated that a third of the children in the deepest poverty are from migrant families, who have no access to state benefits.




Read more:
To truly tackle child poverty, the UK needs to look again at migration policy


One strategy that we can see is working is the provision of free school meals for all children in London. Three in five (60%) parents surveyed said they were able to spend more money on food as a result of free school meals, while 84% said that the provision of school lunches had helped their household finances.

Further action on child poverty requires investment in community support services, such as community kitchens and community support centres, which address the root causes poverty. Communities and children should be at the centre of future policies and plans.

The Conversation

Dr. Regina Murphy Keith is affiliated with the World Public Health Nutrition Association a registered charity for nutritionists and she is a Commissioner on the UK RIght to Food Commisssion

ref. Child poverty: how bad is it in the UK? – https://theconversation.com/child-poverty-how-bad-is-it-in-the-uk-271692

Why do so many love a good ghost story at Christmas? A psychologist explains

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Juliet Wakefield, Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology, Nottingham Trent University

Christmas is usually seen as a time of light, warmth, and happiness. However, in Europe there is a long tradition of people embracing the darker side by telling ghost stories during the festive season.

One of the most famous Christmas stories of all, A Christmas Carol, is essentially a ghost story. Indeed, Mark Gatiss’s well-received staging of the play is currently running under the name A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story at London’s Alexandra Palace Theatre. But what is the psychology behind people who enjoy hearing, reading and watching ghost stories at Christmas?

One important reason comes from Christmas’s winter setting (in the northern hemisphere at least). The short days and long nights of winter provide us with the opportunity for reflection on dark topics such as the supernatural.

The stark contrast between our warm homes and the coldness outside can create the sense of a liminal space (from the Latin word limen, meaning threshold) between light and dark, and between the end of the old year and the beginning of a new one. This can encourage reflection on liminal beings that cannot easily be defined or understood, such as ghosts and spirits.

The religious themes of Christmas also encourage many people to lean into the supernatural. Although for Christians the Christmas story is about the joy surrounding Jesus’s birth, the spectre of his death and resurrection are never far away.

Many Christmas carols mention Jesus’s eventual death, such as We Three Kings, which describes the Wise Men giving the baby Jesus the gift of myrrh, a herb used to prepare bodies for burial:

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume

breathes a life of gathering gloom,

sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,

sealed in the stone-cold tomb.

Ghost stories, which often encompass themes such as judgement and retribution, have also often been intertwined with religious perspectives of morality. It has been argued that the rise in the popularity of ghost stories during the Victorian era was in part due to their attempt to inject Christian values into modern secular society, with Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol a prime example.

Psychology of spookiness

The psychological value of the ghost story’s communal experience should not be underestimated. The seminal ghost story writer M.R. James began telling his stories to students and friends at Christmas Eve parties at the University of Cambridge. Gatherings like this create an ideal setting for sharing stories. The thrill and suspense of collectively engaging with a spooky tale can not only entertain, it can create a sense of bondedness and shared identity, which, as I have shown in my research can benefit people’s wellbeing.

Research has also shown that collective continuity – the ability to maintain values and ideas over time by passing them on to the next generation – enhances wellbeing. Telling ghost stories, like all Christmas traditions, is a clear example of collective continuity.

One way this can enhance wellbeing is by helping people to cope with the prospect of their own death. Terror management theory argues that people manage the fear of their own death by investing in social groups. This essentially allows them to transcend death by being part of a collective that is more enduring than themselves: even after they have gone, the group will remain.

Ensuring that social groups have strong values and traditions (such as storytelling) allows this sense of transcendence to be maintained. The telling of ghost stories offers an additional layer to this continuity. Like horror in general, these stories allow us to explore our fears and reflections on mortality in a safe and supportive environment with like-minded people.

Many ghost stories also encapsulate themes of continuity, such as spirits from the past engaging with people living in the present. The ancient winter festival of Yule (which long predates Christmas) is strongly linked to ideas of continuity and involves ceremonies designed to honour one’s ancestors.

So where should you begin if you want to get into Christmas ghost stories this year? You may wish to start with some modern examples. Master of the ghost story Mark Gatiss has been writing Christmas ghost stories for the BBC for the past few years. His next instalment A Room in the Tower, based on E.F. Benson’s short story, will be on BBC2 at 10pm on Christmas Eve. Interestingly, Benson’s love of ghost stories developed from his attendance of M.R. James’s storytelling events at Cambridge.

Gatiss’s League of Gentlemen co-writers Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton have also created an excellent Christmas ghost story in The Bones of St. Nicholas. Part of their anthology series Inside No. 9, it is available on BBC iPlayer. You can also buy DVDs of the classic BBC Christmas ghost stories, including Dickens’s The Signalman and M.R. James’s Whistle and I’ll Come To You.

There are also excellent anthologies of written Christmas ghost stories, such as Chill Tidings. Wishing you all the best for the spooky Christmas season!

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org; if you click on one of the links and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.


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Juliet Wakefield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

ref. Why do so many love a good ghost story at Christmas? A psychologist explains – https://theconversation.com/why-do-so-many-love-a-good-ghost-story-at-christmas-a-psychologist-explains-271782