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Minister tells GPs to ‘stop moaning’, three quarters of people suffer from back pain and avoid overweight guests at dinner parties

Earl Howe has taken a leaf out of his boss’s manual on how to win GP friends with a statement at the Conservative Party conference that GPs should ‘stop moaning’.

The Guardian reports that the health minister’s big idea to solve the recruitment crisis in general practice is for GPs to simply be quiet and accept their lot.

According to the Guardian, he told delegates at a fringe event last week: ‘A lot of [the recruitment crisis] depends on perceptions of general practice. The more people start sort of moaning about how difficult it is to be a GP, the more you’ll put off aspiring young doctors. So my message to the royal college, which I will give later today, is very gently to say: let’s have a narrative that says general practice is one of the most rewarding careers you can have in medicine, and … this is a solvable problem, the strains in general practice are a solvable problem.”

The Daily Mail reports that three out of four of us now suffer from back pain as a result of time at the desk and lounging around watching TV.

According to a survey of 2,000 people by the British Chiropractic Association 82% of us spend more than six hours a day in front of a computer screen, with 77% of people saying they suffered some back or neck pain or had in the past.

Chiropractor Rishi Loatey said: ‘As a nation we’re becoming increasingly sedentary and struggle to switch off – whether it’s sitting at a desk or lounging on the sofa, hunching over a mobile device or lying in bed for too long, the effects of modern lifestyles are taking their toll.

And finally, the Daily Express reports that sitting with or near an overweight dining partner makes you more likely to fill your face with fatty foods.

Researchers from the University of Southern Illinois found students ate around 30% more food when seated next to an actress with prosthesis to make her appear overweight.

Professor Mitsuru Shimizu said the findings showed the ‘larger your friends, the larger your appetite’ because the body type of a dining partner, or those nearby, influence choice.


          

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