Diabetes NHS cost £10Billion, why no backing for cycling

[pete75]

In a working career spanning forty years I've never found people's ability to do their job is at all related to how they travel to the workplace.

Active travellers tend to be healthier. Healthier people tend to have have less sick time. So while they may not be any better at the job, they're more likely to be doing it for more time.

in other words more productive and the UK has awful productivity figures compared to other countries Like DE, FR and NL

The longest period I've ever had off work was because I cycle.

[pjclinch]

Active travellers tend to be healthier. Healthier people tend to have have less sick time. So while they may not be any better at the job, they're more likely to be doing it for more time.

in other words more productive and the UK has awful productivity figures compared to other countries Like DE, FR and NL

The longest period I've ever had off work was because I cycle.

Same here.
However, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data".

Pete.

[pete75]

in other words more productive and the UK has awful productivity figures compared to other countries Like DE, FR and NL

The longest period I've ever had off work was because I cycle.

Same here.
However, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data".

Pete.

Maybe not but its of more value than confirmation bias which seems the main driver of some of the posts here. Cycling is our hobby a pastime we enjoy. It doesn't in any way make us better people, more competent or reliable workers, greater lovers etc etc than people who choose other pastimes.

[Vorpal]

Or we can rely on the evidence, that shows us that cyclists are more productive.

http://www.travelsmart.gov.au/employers/cycle.html lists several sources of evidence.

http://road.cc/content/news/130251-walk ... tudy-finds sites a British study.

[Cyril Haearn]

Cycling is my life

[thirdcrank]

Whether cycling to work or cycling more generally affects sickness, as in days off, is something that interests me. I'd be interested to know if there's any proper research into the subject, not least because it seems relevant to the subject of the thread. A lot of what I've experienced has been crude attempts to reduce sickness counts, rather than a proper analysis of why people take sick leave, even less why they don't.

In a thirty year career, my official record shows a total of nine days sick leave including three days for a sprained ankle sustained during public order training. During the time when I routinely cycled to work, those three days were the only sick leave I had.

There are stacks of things involved here including sheer luck and working conditions which are not easy to quantify in terms of causation.

At the most basic level, you might expect good health to equate with less sickness but it ain't necessarily so.
========================================
I see Vorpal has posted some links. SMIDSY

[Psamathe]

(I'm not into "diets" so my comment on the quoted report might be mis-interpreted through lack of understanding but) some time ago the fasting diet thing seemed to become popular after TV presented made documentary extolling the health benefits (and it was free, no courses, no books to buy). My neighbours started on it (no idea how it went). Presented as healthy eating as well as weight loss (from vague memory).

Now report

Fasting diets may raise risk of diabetes, researchers warn
New study also suggests regimes that include intermittent fasting may cause other long-term health problems
...
Their findings suggest that fasting-based diets may impair the action of sugar-regulating hormone insulin, and lead to increased risk of diabetes.

I've no idea about the "quality" or nature of their research (must confess to not being desperately interested) but thought it might be relevant to this thread and maybe of interest to some.

Ian

[pete75]

Or we can rely on the evidence, that shows us that cyclists are more productive.

http://www.travelsmart.gov.au/employers/cycle.html lists several sources of evidence.

http://road.cc/content/news/130251-walk ... tudy-finds sites a British study.

All I can say is my experience has been different. I trust my own experience.

[ianrobo]

surely common sense would state those people who walk to work or cycle are going to be fitter and healthier than those stuck in their metal boxes for an hour ?

Humans are not designed to be sedentary animals, we have massive reserves of endurance and stamina compared to most other animals on the planet and these evolved over many millions of years.

Now in the last 50 years only we get in our cars, sit down at work etc and have we been sicker as a nation than today ? YEs average life span is up say on 50 years ago but for the first time in that span predicted average age is heading a bit downwards.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/201 ... s-suggests

in just 20 years this suggest T2 has doubled so something is wrong here and part of it is we do less exercise.

[pjclinch]

Or we can rely on the evidence, that shows us that cyclists are more productive.

http://www.travelsmart.gov.au/employers/cycle.html lists several sources of evidence.

http://road.cc/content/news/130251-walk ... tudy-finds sites a British study.

All I can say is my experience has been different. I trust my own experience.

But you're dead against confirmation bias...

[Psamathe]

surely common sense would state those people who walk to work or cycle are going to be fitter and healthier than those stuck in their metal boxes for an hour ?
.....

I didn't start to cycle until after retirement but some days I'm dither around in the morning knowing I ought to go for a ride but feeling lethargic and short of energy and looking for an excuse. Then I'll go out for my ride, and after 30 miles get home full of life and energy ready to launch into all those other jobs that would not have got done had I just continued to dither around.

Ian

[pete75]

Or we can rely on the evidence, that shows us that cyclists are more productive.

http://www.travelsmart.gov.au/employers/cycle.html lists several sources of evidence.

http://road.cc/content/news/130251-walk ... tudy-finds sites a British study.

All I can say is my experience has been different. I trust my own experience.

But you're dead against confirmation bias...

Confirmation bias is when people say a thing is something because they want it to be so. Experience usually means you know it is so.
Over the years I've interviewed more than a hundred people for different jobs. I've written person specs with essential and desirable skills, studied CV's carefully, spent many hours interviewing people and sometimes setting and marking tests. Now it seems I was wasting my time and could have just asked how do you travel to work.

[pjclinch]

All I can say is my experience has been different. I trust my own experience.

But you're dead against confirmation bias...

Confirmation bias is when people say a thing is something because they want it to be so. Experience usually means you know it is so.

To quote the Wiki,
Confirmation bias, also called confirmatory bias or myside bias, is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses.

If you have experience that gives you a pre-existing belief, but as already noted an anecdote, or even several, is not the same as representative data. For example, if you've been in a train crash where people died but not in a car crash where people died your experience would tell you trains were less safe than cars, but your experience would be wrong. But the people still died on the train.

Over the years I've interviewed more than a hundred people for different jobs. I've written person specs with essential and desirable skills, studied CV's carefully, spent many hours interviewing people and sometimes setting and marking tests. Now it seems I was wasting my time and could have just asked how do you travel to work.

No, that would be falling in to the trap of ecological fallacy, assuming that the general case will apply to any individual in a population. Jobs are for individuals so you look at the CVs and experience of individuals. But if two people show up for interview who are equal in all respects except one drives to work and one cycles the odds would be that you'll get more work out of the cyclist.

Pete.

[pete75]

Over the years I've interviewed more than a hundred people for different jobs. I've written person specs with essential and desirable skills, studied CV's carefully, spent many hours interviewing people and sometimes setting and marking tests. Now it seems I was wasting my time and could have just asked how do you travel to work.

No, that would be falling in to the trap of ecological fallacy, assuming that the general case will apply to any individual in a population. Jobs are for individuals so you look at the CVs and experience of individuals. But if two people show up for interview who are equal in all respects except one drives to work and one cycles the odds would be that you'll get more work out of the cyclist.

Pete.

You don't get irony do you?

[pjclinch]

Over the years I've interviewed more than a hundred people for different jobs. I've written person specs with essential and desirable skills, studied CV's carefully, spent many hours interviewing people and sometimes setting and marking tests. Now it seems I was wasting my time and could have just asked how do you travel to work.

No, that would be falling in to the trap of ecological fallacy, assuming that the general case will apply to any individual in a population. Jobs are for individuals so you look at the CVs and experience of individuals. But if two people show up for interview who are equal in all respects except one drives to work and one cycles the odds would be that you'll get more work out of the cyclist.

Pete.

You don't get irony do you?

I do, but I'll put it on hold when I think someone doesn't get quite get confirmation bias or the issues of population data vs. individual experience.