THE HEALTH of the nation could be improved at no cost by the simple expedient of not changing to winter time, according to a social policy researcher.
We could become even healthier if we then shifted the clock forward next spring, bringing ourselves in line with central European time.
The suggestion comes from Dr Mayer Hillman of the Policy Studies Institute, at the University of Westminster, London. And while his arguments are applied in a British context, the situation would also hold here.
He believes a closer alignment between our clocks and the sun would give us extra hours of free sunlight each year, allowing us more opportunity for outdoor living.
You might be looking forward to that extra hour’s lie-in when the clocks go back to winter time this Sunday but Dr Hillman would deny you the pleasure.
The extra walking, cycling, gardening and other sun-lit pursuits open to you would reduce the risk of heart disease, obesity and diabetes, he writes in a letter to the British Medical Journal.
The additional hours of daylight would deliver “about 300 more [hours] for adults and 200 more [hours] for children each year, given typical daily patterns of activity”, he writes.
Not setting the clocks back – long advocated by Senator Feargal Quinn – might also help to lift spirits during this current winter of our discontent.
Research showed people were happier in summer sunlight “whereas their mood tends to decline – and anxious and depressive states to intensify – during the shorter and duller days of winter”, Dr Hillman writes.
The Government would have to champion the move to a happier, healthier Ireland.
Right now, they would probably prefer those long winter nights – much better for skulking in and out of the Dáil under cover of darkness.
The Department of Justice is responsible for winter time, but no change is contemplated. “There is currently no new proposal at this time to change it,” a spokeswoman said yesterday.
The Irish Sports Council remained neutral on the issue. “In general terms anything that would provide greater opportunity for physical activity would be a good thing,” a spokesman said.
The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association was not impressed, however.
“Any suggestion to move to European time must take account of the very real implications for farming,” said general secretary Ciarán Dolan.
It would move sunrise in Connemara on December 21st to 10am, which would leave early-rising farmers there working in the dark.