Get off that couch: More than a third of Irish children aged between five and 12 watch more than two hours of TV on school days with those who watch the most being more prone to obesity, a survey published last week has shown.
The Irish Universities Nutritional Alliance (IUNA) survey was conducted over a one-year period among 594 school children as part of the SuperValu Kids in Action programme. It showed that 54 per cent of obese children watch TV for more than two hours a day compared with 33 per cent of children within the normal range.
Free legal downloads
Vivendi Universal is to make its music catalogue available on a free legal downloads service. Spiralfrog is to offer Universal's songs online in the US and Canada. Spiralfrog is based in New York and will launch its service in December. It will challenge market leader Apple's iTunes, which charges 99 cents per song in the US.
No porn, thanks
A British Home Office advert for a child protection website inadvertently directed radio listeners to adult porn, the Advertising Standards Authority has found. The radio commercial was publicising the thinkuknow.co.uk site which advises children how to stay safe online. But a listener who mistakenly typed in the wrong address found that a series of links led her to porn sites. The Home Office has apologised for any "unwitting problems".
Get good bed karma
This autumn, Habitat will launch a recycling service for old and unwanted mattresses and divans in 10 shops throughout Britain. Habitat says in plans to generate "good karma" by ensuring all the components of old mattresses will be ethically recycled. Habitat will take away old mattresses on delivery of any new furniture for a cost of £15 for single mattresses or £20 for doubles. Unfortunately Habitat's Irish shops are not getting any good karma just yet although a spokeswoman did say that the store would look forward to introducing it to Ireland.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/6BDEAESQEJH4BHNFRSVZH3W4TM.png)