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Health Check: 19/10/2011

19/10/2011

BBC World Service - Health Check, 19/10/2011

Attempts in Australia to sell cigarettes in plain packaging to reduce deaths from smoking.

Selling cigarettes in plain packaging to stop people smoking; One in six British mobile phones contaminated with faecal matter because of poor hygiene; Changing bad habits by tricking your brain.

PLAIN CIGARETTE PACKAGING
Attempts are being made in Australia to be the first country in the world to force all tobacco companies to sell cigarettes in plain packaging. The aim is to cut deaths from one of the most famously health-damaging habits; smoking. The bill was passed through the House of Representatives in August, but its journey through the Senate has stalled in the last couple of weeks. Public health officials believe this legislation could have the single greatest effect on the numbers of smokers in the next generation. As Nicky Phillips reports from Sydney, the tobacco industry is fighting against the plan.

MOBILE PHONE GERMS AND HAND WASHING
Nine out of ten people in the world do not wash their hands with soap after they have gone to the toilet. As a result of this bad habit, one in six mobile phones in Britain is contaminated with faecal matter, according to a brand new study. Dr Val Curtis, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in London, explains why hand washing is so vital.

BREAKING BAD HABITS
How can we break some of those automatic habits, like eating a packet of crisps every time you watch TV even though you are not really hungry? Psychologically there are two ingredients to a habit: something unconscious that you do repeatedly and in the same setting. New research just published in Personality and Psychology Bulletin has found that psychological habits like these could be broken by doing something physically different, such as eating food with the hand you would not normally use. Not every culture uses both hands, but in the United States most people do, and it is where Dr David Neal from the University of Southern California conducted his research - with the help of a cinema and some popcorn.

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