Sloth

 I used to be happy to admit to occasionally allowing myself to
lapse into sloth. However, in the present climate of opinion, such an admission
is no longer ‘PC’. Indeed, if we are to believe some of our politicians, Britain
is in the process of becoming a nation of slothful social security scroungers.
It’s all the fault of the welfare state, they whine, as the disabled, the
elderly, the sick and unemployed are all lumped to together with the tiny
minority who have abused the country’s benefit system. 
 
In the same week as welfare reforms come into effect, spread all
over the front pages of the newspapers is the archetypal ‘scrounging
scumbag’........Mick Philpott. Listening to government ministers, their message
is loud and clear; the welfare reforms are necessary to prevent individuals such
as Philpott from living it up on taxpayers’ money. 
 
A recent report, entitled ‘Benefits Stigma in Britain’,
commissioned by Turn2us, an anti-poverty charity shows how the media has ‘ramped
up’ the anti welfare rhetoric in the last ten years. The researcher, Elizabeth
Finn, examined more than 6,000 articles on social security between 1995 and 2011
from the major newspapers – the Times, the Mirror, the Guardian, the
Independent, the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, the Sun and the Daily
Express.

 Thirty per cent of all articles focussed on benefit fraud even
although, rates of fraud have never exceeded 3%. The study shows that
disproportionate coverage of fraud is linked to higher levels of stigma, with
the readers of "stigmatising newspapers", such as the Sun, believing there were
"higher levels of deception within the welfare system. The report says three
newspapers – the Sun, Mail and Express – show an "exceptional focus" on
claimants' apparent "lack of effort", unfairly stigmatising millions as lazy and
slothful. 

The prophets of the Old Testament and Jesus himself had
considerable sympathy for the poor and the disadvantaged. It is therefore little
wonder that four churches (from the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the
Methodist and United Reformed Churches, and the Church of Scotland) joined
together to criticise the government's welfare reforms as unjust - they fear
that society's most vulnerable will be disproportionately hit. 
 
While the popular press has been railing against sloth, medical
researchers have been busy producing a world map of sloth. Published in the
Lancet in July 2012, to coincide with the Olympics, the study by Pedro Hallal of
the Federal University of Pelotas, is the most complete portrait yet of the
world's busy bees and couch potatoes. 

Dr Hallal and his colleagues pooled data from health surveys for
122 countries, covering 89% of the world’s population. They found that 31% of
adults do not get enough physical activity. This is defined as 30 minutes of
moderate exercise five days a week, or 20 minutes of vigorous exercise three
days a week, or some combination of the two. Malta, according to the report is
the most slothful country in the world, with 72% of adults getting too little
exercise.

Sounds like a very civilised place to live..........I might just consider moving
!!


 


Elmo