What’s your goal as a parent? That may strike you as an odd question. Most would simply answer, “I try to do what’s best for my child whatever will help him enjoy a happy, successful life.” But what that translates into each day depends on your view of childhood. If you, like most adults, characterize a six-month-old, even a one- or two-year-old, in terms of his dependencies, then you will probably see parenthood as requiring nothing less than a total dedication to this endlessly needy child whom you have brought into the world. This means that you have an awesome responsibility in fact, too awesome for anyone to live up to, which makes failure certain. Alternatively, if you are able to look beyond the conventional view of children to see their many competencies, to focus on what they can do rather than what they can’t, [Read more...]
What is Actuarial Risk?
Actuarial risk is the risk that arises from an insurer developing funds via the issuance of insurance policies and other liabilities. In financial terms, it is the risk that the insurer has charged too little for the options that it has sold insured’s in the form of the provisions and promises embedded in their insurance policies. In such cases, the insurer cannot expect to achieve satisfactory cash flow in the long run. As conceptualized, however, actuarial risk would be valued and analyzed more from an options pricing point of view than from the traditional actuarial pricing point of view. The most obvious actuarial risk, of course, is the risk that mortality or morbidity experience deviates negatively from that implicit in the insurer’s pricing. This could happen because either projection themselves were based on an inadequate knowledge of the loss distribution or losses exceed projections in the normal [Read more...]
Big Food Means Big Waistlines?
And then there’s our genetic inheritance from our hunter-gatherer ancestors. All those tens of thousands of years ago food was often in scarce supply so they ate as much as they could when they had it, to store fat ready for leaner times. This means we still have a strong hunger drive even if we are overweight our genes still think we can’t afford to take the risk of missing out! Annoyingly, these ‘drive to eat’ mechanisms aren’t as efficient when it comes to stopping eating so we can happily go-ahead and eat whether we are hungry or not. To counteract the toxic environment we don’t need to face limited food supplies or become athletes. Small and subtle changes to our lifestyle can be enough to tip the balance in our favour so that our weight stays more or less stable over [Read more...]
we gain weight if we take in more calories than we burn
we gain weight if we take in more calories than we burn. It’s that simple. Many of us will gain around a pound a year without realizing it. Some of us will gain a lot more. It’s not because we are greedy, bad or even obviously overeating. It’s because we live in an environment where food is everywhere and activity is discouraged. A place where food is so abundant that eating purely for hunger is a rarity rather than a given. Not only is food convenient (think fast-food chains, chocolates and crisps at tills), it’s seductively advertised, quickly prepared, cheap, confusingly labeled, in big-portion sizes and tastes better than ever. Meanwhile, we sit at desks, in front of television and computer screens or behind a steering wheel. [Read more...]
Obesity is now the commonest cause of ill health
That said, there are real health risks linked to being overweight, especially if you are 13-l9kg (2-3 stone), or more, overweight (known as ‘obesity’). While we can’t change our basic body shape, we can control how fat and fit we are. This doesn’t mean that we have to be super slim, but it does make sense to aim to keep to a weight that is healthy, and feels comfortable. A weight where we have the energy and ability to fully enjoy a long life, and the pleasures it brings. Until relatively recently, weight and shape were largely seen as things that have an impact on our appearance, and how well we fit into our clothes. But there is now a very powerful body of research that spells out just how [Read more...]
