I can see it now.
Women the world over smiling from ear to ear, gleefully singing while cleaning house, with rubber gloves stamped with little pink ribbons, pink ribbon stamped dust clothes, pink handled scrub brushes, happy in the knowledge they are saving their health.
Yes ladies break out the pumps and the pearls and the “mommy’s little helpers” cause it turns out that housework is good for you!
Doing housework can cut substantially a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer, according to researchers.
A study comparing the beneficial effects of different types of exercise found that moderate housework had the biggest obvious effect.
More than 44,000 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed in the UK every year. Last year 12,400 women died from the disease, most in their postmenopausal years.
Of course it is the exercise component not the specific activity which generates any protective value.
The authors noted that housework was one of the “main sources of activity” for women living in these countries. Lesley Walker, Cancer Research UK’s director of cancer information, said: “We already know that women who keep a healthy weight are less likely to develop breast cancer.
“This study suggests that being physically active may also help reduce the risk and that something as simple and cheap as doing the housework can help.
“Cancer Research UK’s Reduce the Risk Campaign recommends that men and women take regular exercise and maintain a healthy body weight to help prevent cancer.”
Interesting that the article is first geared toward making it sound as if housework in and of itself provides some benefit, instead of from the outset making it clear that it is physical activity that provides protection and that all forms of activity including housework can be beneficial.
I’m sure that physical activity is good for the male members of the household too. So sorry guys but you aren’t off the hook.
You may want to look into these though
Electrolux has just revealed an image of what deceptively looks to be a hiddeous pair of green rubber platform shoes stolen from the closet of Marvin the Martian. But to our surprise, it is actually a pair of vacuuming shoes. Slip them on and shuffle around the house to pick up dirt and complete your daily workout at the same time.
LOL…Well, I am of the view that we all need to reclaim some time to take care of our daily sustaining activities…Maybe, they could study domestic workers from the Third World and if they have lower breast cancer rates…Poof! We’ve made a case for their continued exploitation!
Ye gawds! Does this mean my lovely and talented wife will be wresting the vacuum cleaner from my hands?
It does make you wonder where in the hell some of these things originate. If weight-lifting and snowshoeing were the main activities of women some clown would probably agree that it’s good exercise but women would be less likely to sweat and be able to stay warmer if they did housework instead.
So you mean we’ll soon see lines of DVDs called Vacu-robics (featuring vacuum cleaning workouts)? Creepy!
Vacu-robics LOL