Welcome to Fitmodo, your regular weekly round up of the news you need to know to keep your earthly form in top shape — from fitness advice to breakthroughs in medical research.
This week: How much time we are spending sitting, anti-vaxxers are not on the rise and Australia’s first medicinal marijuana farm is officially opened.
Fitbit Data Shows Australians Spend Over Five Hours A Day Sitting
Research shows that even with appropriate levels of physical activity, sitting for prolonged periods of time is associated with a significantly higher risk of heart disease, and each hour of sitting increases chances of heart disease by 14 per cent.
Fitbit have anonymously aggregated the data from over one million Fitbit users, it was found that on average, users are sedentary for a period of up to 90 minutes at a time, with Australians spending an average of five hours and 10 minutes per day on our behinds.
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Anti-Vaxxers Are Not On The Rise In Australia
Anti-vaccination advocates may be appearing more often in your Facebook feed, but the data shows a very different story. Surprisingly, the overall level of vaccination objection (registered and unregistered) has remained largely unchanged since 2001.
Dr Frank Beard and colleagues from the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead and the University of Sydney examined the trends in registered vaccination objection and estimated the contribution of unregistered objection to incomplete vaccination among children in Australia.
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Australia’s First Medicinal Marijuana Farm Is Now Open
Acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has launched, in an Australian first, a 47 hectare farm for the purposes of growing medicinal cannabis at a location near Tamworth in northern New South Wales.
Called DanEden, the farm is named after Dan Haslam, who was a tireless campaigner for the legalisation of the treatment and lost his battle with cancer a year ago.
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Australia’s First Robotic Hip Surgeon Starts Work Today
The first robotically assisted hip replacement operation in Australia is due to be performed today on a patient in Brisbane. A total hip replacement (THR) is one of the most successful operations that surgeons perform, with more than 43,000 carried out last year in Australia alone.
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You Might Throw Up After Taking The World’s First IMAX Spin Class
The one thing you can’t buy at Lululemon to help you with your fitness routine is motivation. But IMAX thinks it can get your butt off the couch with a new cycling class that takes place in front of one its massive and immersive movie screens.
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Also catching our eye:
- Does sex count as exercise? Lifehacker Australia has the answer.
- A celebrity trainer reveals to Business Insider Australia the most common mistake people make while on a diet..
- Popsugar Australia has everything you need to create your own home gym.