Health & Wellbeing

People who are looking to quit smoking are being encouraged to sign up to this year’s Stoptober campaign with friends, family or work colleagues. Evidence shows “social quitting” – where groups collectively try to give up smoking – can dramatically improve people’s chances of successfully stopping.

Weight loss champion Councillor Paul Sweet has set his sights on tackling next year's Wolverhampton Marathon – after defying even his own expectations by completing the half-marathon last weekend. Councillor Sweet, the City of Wolverhampton Council's Cabinet Member for Governance, made it his ambition to take part in the half-marathon after embarking on a weight loss challenge last September.

Diabetes UK is recommending that Jewish people with diabetes talk with their rabbi ahead of the three major festivals in the coming weeks. Rosh Hashanah, on September 14-15, and Simchat Torah at the end of Sukkot, on October 6, are both traditionally celebrated by feasting.

QEHB Charity, the official charity of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, and UK military charity Help for Heroes recently joined forces to treat our troops to an exhilarating day of off-road driving, thanks to support from kind-hearted company Jaguar Land Rover. The automotive company kindly invited military personnel to take part in an Land Rover Experience off-road driving activity at its Solihull plant.

Cabinet Member for Health and Social Care, Cllr Paulette Hamilton, continues her quest to be more active by joining a free Tai Chi session in Cotteridge Park in her own words. Since becoming Cabinet member for Health and Social Care in May, I've been keen to promote the benefits of exercise and generally leading an active life.

The Let’s talk about Loneliness in the Community meeting, which is being organised by the Haringey Forum for Older People in conjunction with the council and Haringey Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), will encourage people to think about what steps can be taken to help people feel more connected to others in the local area and help to link vulnerable residents with sources of advice and support.

Birmingham health chiefs hope the forthcoming ban on smoking in cars carrying children will encourage more smokers to quit. The new legislation aims to protect young people under-18 from second-hand smoke and Cabinet member for Health and Social Care, Cllr Paulette Hamilton, believes it will make a massive difference to the lives of thousands of Birmingham children.

Sunday 6^th September saw 29 plucky men and women drop 150ft from the Hilton Hotel, Birmingham, in order to support patients at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham. Kelly Jackson, 26, who lost her leg in a 2013 road traffic accident, took the plunge in order to give back to all those who treated and supported her at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham through her traumatic injury.

As the nation commemorates the 75^th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, a new report from the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund, the RAF’s leading welfare charity, finds that significant numbers of RAF veterans both young and old are experiencing depression, loneliness, relationship troubles, and bereavement.  These concerns join self-care and mobility as the top welfare needs of the RAF veteran community. 

Friday, October 2nd marks the 18th annual Byte Night, a sponsored sleep out which sees more than 1,500 people across the UK spend the night exposed to the elements to raise money for Action for Children.  Over 230 sleepers have already pledged to take part in the 2015 Midlands event, to be held in St Paul’s Square, Birmingham

Adults in the West Midlands are taking 25 per cent fewer trips on foot compared with a decade ago, according to new data released today. The analysis, drawn by Diabetes UK from the National Travel Survey, reveals that local people made an average of 181 journeys every year by foot in 2013/14, a number that has gone down significantly since 2003/04 when 241 journeys were being made annually by foot, on average, in the West Midlands.

Diabetes UK is warning that children born to women with gestational diabetes are six times more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes later in life. The charity is urging women to try to make sure they are a healthy weight, which is the most important thing they can do to reduce their risk of gestational diabetes.

International Blood Cancer Awareness Month has got off to a great start for Cure Leukaemia, thanks to a donation of £64,966 from fundraisers at Brindleyplace. The staggering amount of money was raised during Brindleyplace’s annual Dragonboat Festival which saw teams made up of local businesses from across Birmingham, battle it out against each other along the Birmingham and Worcester canal in traditional 40ft long Chinese dragonboats, all the way from Pitcher and Piano to the Barclaycard Arena.

The call is out to all Midlanders! ‘Let’s spare Just One More pound to help Cure Leukaemia fund Just One More specialist research nurse – and save lives. To mark international Blood Cancer Awareness Month, Cure Leukaemia is calling for the region to get behind its biggest-ever community fundraising campaign, Just One More.

Important changes need to be made at the highest level to urgently address the UK’s deteriorating dental health from sugar consumption, an oral health charity says. The British Dental Health Foundation is fully supporting new proposals made by one of the most outspoken voices in the campaign against excess sugar, chef Jamie Oliver.

A new study reveals that thousands of people could be putting their oral health at risk by not brushing their teeth in the evening because they are too tired. The survey of 10,000 UK adults, commissioned by GSK, as part of its Love Your Mouth campaign found that 45% of people questioned say they have gone to bed without brushing their teeth, which could increase their chances of cavities, gum disease and even tooth loss.