They found that five-year-olds whose mothers worked part-time or full-time were more likely to primarily consume sweetened drinks between meals.
They used their computers or watched television for at least two hours a day compared to the children of "stay at home" mothers who spent less than two hours on these activities.
They were also more likely to be driven to school compared to the children of "stay at home" mothers who tended to walk or cycle.
The children whose mothers had a flexible working pattern did have healthier lifestyles but when other factors were taken into account the researchers said there was little evidence that these children behaved more healthily.
RANT: Once again the mother's of the world have had a bucketful of guilt and worry thrown over them from the establishment for wanting to work for a living and provide an income. We all know that everything would be great if all parents could work from home but some jobs just have to be done at the place of work - it's a fact of life. What this report - from the Institute of Child Health - doesn't say is what we can do about it.
For years the government's of the westernized world have been actively encouraging mothers into work and act surprised when our children all start getting fat and acting like feral dogs. I'm all for parents working, everyone should work, it's good for the soul and the purse. But it's the type of work that's as important as the act of working itself. When policy was put in place to get these parents into work it was focused on the same old methodology of up at 7am, in traffic at 8am, working at 9am. There was no brainstorming going on in those government offices, no "is there a way we can have it all" questions.
If someone had actually made some effort and given it some thought then maybe they would have come up with some enlightened policy for parents returning to work - for the nation as a whole. In S.Korea right now there is a broadband network that can deliver 1000Mbps - a 1000!!! My supplier says 'up to 10Mbps' and that's a bloody lie. Can you imagine what could be done from any location with infastructure like that - any doc, video, software, net-meeting, examination, surgery, interview or architects drawing could be seen, worked on and consulted on in real-time. You'd never have to leave the house.
What if, instead of spending $Bn on turning a 6 lane motorway into a 10 lane motorway each new parent was given a free laptop, an internet connection like the one above and access to a service like hiremyparents. What if, instead of building and extending airports around the world for millions of business travellers to use you gave them an internet infastructure that would negate the need to travel, travelling would just be a waste of time and a needless destruction of a planet that's already had enough of us.
If governments around the world could just get out of this tunnel-vision approach and see the possibilities that a new generation of technology and inspired thinking could bring about they would save $Tn (actually using the word trillions - mind-boggling), give parents the opportunity to turn their children's TV's off and take them for a walk and massively decrease the strain on our global travel network and the planet itself.
It's a big job - I know that. It would be a massive upheaval for the world of work but look at the benefits, look at the alternative if we don't do something. It would be like Bladerunner but with really fat kids.
Check out our blog about flexible work for parents
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