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Millions of eligible Aussies about to receive financial boost

Starting this Wednesday, millions of Australians relying on Centrelink benefits will see a welcome increase in their payments. With indexation kicking in, fortnightly boosts ranging from $14 to $30 will be allocated to eligible recipients, depending on their specific circumstances and the type of payment they receive. This adjustment will not only benefit current beneficiaries but also extend support to more individuals, with an additional 77,000 parents now qualifying for higher payment rates. The eligibility criteria for certain payments have been expanded, particularly for parents whose youngest child is under 14, a significant extension from the previous threshold of under eight. Income and assets limits tied to these payments will also experience an uptick in line with the indexation process, offering further relief to recipients. But how exactly will these increments manifest across different categories of payments? For single parents, the fortnightly payment will see a boost of $17.50, while partnered parents will witness an increase of $12.30 individually. Moreover, the income free area will rise to $1,345 for each person, an enhancement of $20 per fortnight. Jobseekers with children or those aged over 55 will receive an additional $14.40 fortnightly. Single JobSeeker recipients without children and individuals aged over 22 on ABSTUDY will enjoy a $13.50 increase per fortnight, with couples receiving an extra $12.30 each. Rent assistance, however, will see relatively modest increments, ranging from $2.27 to $3.40, depending on the recipient's family situation. For those on the age pension, disability support pension, and carer payment, the increase is more substantial, with singles receiving an extra $19.60 and couples combined receiving $29.40 each fortnight. This brings the maximum rate of the pension to $1116.30 for singles and $1682.80 for couples, including pension and energy supplements. Amanda Rishworth, the Social Services Minister, explains that indexation plays a crucial role in ensuring that welfare recipients can cope with inflation and the rising cost of living – and that addressing these pressures remains a top priority for the government. This increase in Centrelink payments comes at a critical time when many Australians are grappling with economic uncertainty due to various factors, including the ongoing pandemic. While these adjustments may seem modest to some, they can make a significant difference for those relying on welfare support to make ends meet. It's essential for eligible individuals to stay informed about these changes and ensure they receive the full benefits they're entitled to. For those who may be unsure about their eligibility or how to navigate the system, seeking assistance from Centrelink or relevant support services can provide valuable guidance. As the cost of living continues to evolve, initiatives like indexation serve as vital mechanisms for maintaining the welfare safety net and supporting vulnerable members of society. By keeping pace with economic realities, these adjustments strive to provide meaningful relief to those who need it most, contributing to a more equitable and inclusive society for all Australians. Image: Getty

Money & Banking

The body mass index can’t tell us if we’re healthy. Here’s what we should use instead

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rachael-jefferson-buchanan-297850">Rachael Jefferson-Buchanan</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/charles-sturt-university-849">Charles Sturt University</a> We’ve known for some time the <a href="https://theconversation.com/using-bmi-to-measure-your-health-is-nonsense-heres-why-180412">body mass index (BMI) is an inaccurate measuring stick</a> for assessing someone’s weight and associated health. But it continues to be the go-to tool for medical doctors, population researchers and personal trainers. Why is such an imperfect tool still being used, and what should we use instead? <h2>First, what is BMI?</h2> BMI is an internationally recognised screening method for sorting people into one of four weight categories: underweight (BMI less than 18.5), normal weight (18.5 to 24.9), overweight (25.0 to 29.9) or obese (30 or greater). It’s a value <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/index.html">calculated</a> by a measure of someone’s mass (weight) divided by the square of their height. <h2>Who invented BMI?</h2> Belgian mathematician <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Adolphe-Quetelet">Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet</a> (1796-1874) devised the BMI in 1832, as a mathematical model to chart the average Western European man’s <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17890752/">physical characteristics</a>. It was initially called the <a href="https://www.msdmanuals.com/en-au/professional/multimedia/clinical-calculator/body-mass-index-quetelets-index">Quetelet Index</a> and was never meant to be used as a medical assessment tool. The Quetelex Index was renamed the “body mass index” in 1972. <h2>What’s wrong with the BMI?</h2> Using a mathematical formula to give a full picture of someone’s health is just not possible. The BMI <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/adult_bmi/index.html">does not measure excess body fat</a>, it just measures “excess” weight. It does not distinguish between excess body fat or bone mass or musculature, and does not interpret the distribution of fat (which is a <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/abdominal-fat-and-what-to-do-about-it">predictor</a> of health, including type 2 diabetes, metabolic disorders, and heart disease). It also cannot tell the difference between social variables such as sex, age, and ethnicity. Given Quetelet’s formula used only Western European men, the findings are not appropriate for many other groups, including non-European ethnicities, post-menopausal women and pregnant women. The medical profession’s <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37432007/">overreliance on BMI</a> may be <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2930234/">harming patients’ health</a> as it ignores much of what makes us healthy and focuses only on mass. <h2>What should we use instead?</h2> Rather than seeing BMI as the primary diagnostic test for determining a person’s health, it should be used in conjunction with other measures and considerations. Since researchers know belly fat around our vital organs carries the most <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3324">health risk</a>, <a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-definition/how-to-measure-body-fatness/">waist circumference</a>, waist-to-hip ratio or waist-to-height ratio offer more accurate measurements of health. Waist circumference: is an effective measure of fat distribution, particularly for athletes who carry less fat and more muscle. It’s most useful as a predictor of health when <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7027970/">combined with the BMI</a>. Waist circumference should be less than 94cm for men and 80cm for women for <a href="https://www.heartfoundation.org.au/bundles/your-heart/waist-measurement">optimal health</a>, as measured from halfway between the bottom of your ribs and your hip bones. Waist-to-hip ratio: calculates the proportion of your body fat and how much is stored on your waist, hips, and buttocks. It’s the waist measurement divided by hip measurement and according to the World Health Organisation it should be <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/44583/9789241501491_eng.pdf;jsessionid=A119D165CFFF5E7B5BDBD51D9DD25684?sequence=1">0.85 or less for women, and 0.9 or less in men</a> to reduce health risks. It’s especially beneficial in predicting health outcomes in <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40200-021-00882-4">older people</a>, as the ageing process alters the body proportions on which BMI is founded. This is because fat mass increases and muscle mass decreases with age. Waist-to-height ratio: is height divided by waist circumference, and it’s <a href="https://www.nice.org.uk/news/article/keep-the-size-of-your-waist-to-less-than-half-of-your-height-updated-nice-draft-guideline-recommends">recommended</a> a person’s waist circumference be kept at less than half their height. Some studies have found this measure is <a href="https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/3/e010159">most strongly correlated</a> with health predictions. Body composition and body fat percentage can also be calculated through <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1A9m0wO17g">skinfold measurement tests</a>, by assessing specific locations on the body (such as the abdomen, triceps or quadriceps) with skin callipers. Additional ways to gauge your heart health include asking your doctor to monitor your cholesterol and blood pressure. These more formal tests can be combined with a review of lifestyle, diet, physical activity, and family medical history. <h2>What makes us healthy apart from weight?</h2> A diet including whole grains, low fat protein sources such as fish and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legume">legumes</a>, eggs, yoghurt, cheese, milk, nuts, seeds, and plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/heart-disease/in-depth/heart-healthy-diet/art-20047702">reduces our risk</a> of heart and vessel disease. Limiting <a href="https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumer/generalissues/Pages/processed-foods.aspx">processed food</a> and sugary snacks, as well as <a href="https://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/public+content/sa+health+internet/healthy+living/healthy+eating/healthy+eating+tips/eat+less+saturated+and+trans+fats">saturated and trans fats</a> can help us with weight management and ward off diet-related illnesses. Being physically active most days of the week improves general health. This <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/topics/physical-activity-and-exercise/physical-activity-and-exercise-guidelines-for-all-australians">includes</a> two sessions of strength training per week, and 2.5 to five hours of moderate cardio activity or 1.25 to 2.5 hours of vigorous cardio activity. Weight is just one aspect of health, and there are much better measurements than BMI.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211190/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rachael-jefferson-buchanan-297850">Rachael Jefferson-Buchanan</a>, Lecturer in Human Movement Studies (Health and PE) and Creative Arts, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/charles-sturt-university-849">Charles Sturt University</a> Image credits: Getty Images This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-body-mass-index-cant-tell-us-if-were-healthy-heres-what-we-should-use-instead-211190">original article</a>.

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Body mass index miscalculation

<div> <div class="copy"> For the first time in my life, to my horror, I noticed I had developed a spare tyre, so I put myself on a diet to get rid of it. It was a very simple diet: eat less. I lost 7 kg in three weeks and I looked trim. Bouncing triumphantly off the scales one morning, I decided to check my body mass index (BMI). To my great surprise, with a BMI of 24.1, I was at the high end of ‘normal’, <a rel="noopener" href="http://www.health.gov.au/internet/healthyactive/publishing.nsf/Content/healthy-weight" target="_blank">defined as between 18.5 and 24.9</a>. The charts told me I could lose another 20 kg and still be normal, but that would leave me skin and bones. It naturally got me wondering: how scientific is the body mass index (BMI)? It may be a <a rel="noopener" href="https://academic.oup.com/ndt/article/23/1/47/1923176" target="_blank">188-year-old staple of health statistics</a>, but modern health professionals have documented many flaws. For starters, the BMI doesn’t distinguish whether body weight comes from fat or muscle, so Michelin Man and the Terminator might have the same BMI despite their very obvious differences in fat and muscle distribution. Neither does it factor in other key health criteria such as age, gender or body type. For instance, people who deposit fat around their waists are at a higher risk of disease than people who deposit it on their hips and thighs. My concern, however, is that the BMI ignores elementary physics. The problem traces back to Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet, the Belgian statistician who invented the BMI in 1830. Quetelet failed to consider the mathematics of scaling. He defined the body mass index as weight divided by height squared. Note, however, that weight is proportional to volume, which is proportional to height cubed. The upshot of this is that, all other things being equal, BMI varies directly with height, which it clearly should not. (See formula below.) Perhaps the fault goes back to Jonathan Swift’s <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17157/17157-h/17157-h.htm" target="_blank">wildly popular 1726 tale of </a><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17157/17157-h/17157-h.htm" target="_blank">Gulliver’s Travels</a>. Swift’s giant Brobdingnagians and tiny Lilliputians could not actually exist. For example, consider a giant twice as tall as myself but with exactly my shape and looks. If the giant was standing on a beach with no other objects in sight, a far-off observer could not tell that he was not me. Because his mass would be proportional to my height cubed, my double-height doppelganger would weigh eight times more than me. However, the cross-sectional area of his legs would be proportional to my height squared, so they would be only four times stronger. Those poor bones! They would be over-stressed by carrying eight times the weight. My giant double would collapse under his own weight. Now create a version of me half my height. He would weigh one-eighth of what I weigh, but his leg bones and muscles would be twice as strong as they needed to be. Nature understands this, which is why elephants look like elephants and ants like ants. The BMI formula does not share this insight. It can make tall people appear overweight when they are not. Compared with a 152 cm (five foot) individual with a ‘normal’ BMI of 22, an identically proportioned 183 cm (six foot) person would have a BMI of 26.5 – overweight. Based on BMI ranges, most Australians are too plump: 28% are classified as obese, 35% overweight, 35% normal and a mere 2% underweight. No doubt this skewing towards being overweight reflects a genuine health problem. But it might be affected by the increase in the average height of the population since 1830. Fortunately for Quetelet, there were few Terminators back then to question his BMI. And fortunately for Jonathan Swift his satire was not questioned by an incurable engineer who would have pointed out that the Brobdingnagian giants, at 12 times the height of Gulliver, would have weighed more than 100 tonnes, with a BMI in the hundreds. I don’t suggest changing the way the BMI is calculated, despite its flaws, because we would not want to throw out the past 188 years of BMI records (noting that in most cases the raw data – height and weight – will not have been kept). Instead, we could adjust the standard BMI numerical ranges for underweight, normal weight, overweight and obese based on height, and perhaps even gender and body shape. Then your quite trim incurable engineer could relax instead of dieting himself to skin and bones. Image credit: Shutterstock  <img id="cosmos-post-tracker" style="opacity: 0; height: 1px!important; width: 1px!important; border: 0!important; position: absolute!important; z-index: -1!important;" src="https://syndication.cosmosmagazine.com/?id=21579&title=Body+mass+index+miscalculation" alt="" width="1" height="1" />  </div> <div id="contributors"> This article was originally published on <a rel="noopener" href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/body-and-mind/body-mass-index-miscalculation/" target="_blank">cosmosmagazine.com</a> and was written by Alan Finkel. </div> </div>

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Understanding the All Ordinaries index can give you a financial leg up

You’ve probably seen the All Ordinaries Index quoted in a countless numbers of news reports over the years and never thought twice about it. But even if you don’t have a Masters in Finance, understanding this index, and the information it is trying to convey to you can give you an investment edge. But first, what is the All Ordinaries Index? Well, to put it in basic terms, the All Ordinaries is a measurement of the movement of share values which have been traded on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). So you can basically look at the All Ordinaries as a basic indicator of how the share market is performing and what the current trends are. The figure displayed by the All Ordinaries will reflect economic events and situations which the share market has reacted to, and in this sense it can be thought of as a reflection of the health of the economy. So, how is the All Ordinaries calculated? Well basically, without looking at the complicated mathematical formulas that go into the figure, the All Ordinaries is calculated by examining the market value of the 300 companies that are represented in the All Ordinaries Index portfolio. The portfolio is updated monthly, and to be included a company must maintain an average turnover on the ASX of at least 0.5 per cent of its quotes shares per month and have a market value of at least 0.2 per cent of all domestic equities quoted on the ASX. The All Ordinaries takes this data, interprets it through a formula and creates a figure that’s designed to represent the overall health of the market. So how can this index help me? Well, basically if you have a superannuation fund you’ve got some skin in the game, so to speak, and it’s useful to see how the stocks are performing. Tat being said, Wealth For Life Financial Planning principal Rex Whitford told News.com.au your focus on an index depends on your investment earnings. “If you reinvest your earnings back into the market instead of spending them, then an accumulation index is a good guide. One example of this may be within your superannuation if you are still saving and not drawing a pension.” Related links: <a href="/finance/money-banking/2016/05/australias-5c-coin-could-be-retired/">Australias 5c coin could be retired</a> <a href="/finance/money-banking/2016/05/who-to-contact-if-you-have-been-scammed/">Who to contact if you have been scammed</a> <a href="/finance/money-banking/2016/04/how-to-prepare-for-volatility-in-the-financial-markets/">How to prepare for volatility in the financial markets</a>

Money & Banking

UN release annual quality of life index

New Zealand was ranked equal ninth best country in the in the world for quality of life according to a UN report based on measures including economic, education and life-expectancy data. New Zealand was equal with Canada while our friends across the ditch in Australia were ranked second best. Australia’s “Human Development Index” (HDI) was measured a .935 (out of a possible maximum score of one). This puts Australia second to only Norway which topped the list for 2015, and ahead of Switzerland which came in at third position. The UN base the HDI on what it calls “three basic dimensions of human development, being life expectancy at birth, mean and expected years of schooling and standard of living. The UN Human Development Index International Scorecard: 1. Norway 2. Australia 3. Switzerland 4. Denmark 5. Netherlands 6. Germany 7. Ireland 8. United States 9. =New Zealand 9. =Canada 11. Singapore Source: UN HDI report, 17/12/2015 Related links: <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/travel/domestic-travel/2015/11/best-accommodation-in-new-zealand/">Marlborough town has reputation for best accommodation in New Zealand</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/travel/domestic-travel/2015/10/tips-for-caravanning-with-pets/">Tips for caravanning with pets</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/travel/domestic-travel/2015/10/hiking-tips-for-beginners/">15 hiking tips for beginners</a>

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Millions of eligible Aussies about to receive financial boost