100 Most Dangerous Things in Everyday Life: And What You Can Do about Them

Synopsis

These days it seems we cannot turn on the television or open a newspaper without another blaring headline spelling out a danger or risk. Yet we worry about the wrong things. Often the things that cause us to wake in the night in a cold sweat are statistically much less dangerous than the everyday activities that we carry out without a moment's thought. We worry about the chemicals in our food, and yet are 30 times more likely to get cancer from eating peanut butter than by exposure to pesticides. We worry about stress at work, but according to a study by the University of Texas, people who do boring jobs are up to 50 percent more likely to die in a given 10 year period than those in high stress jobs. Forget bungee jumping or sky-diving, every year, thousands of hapless television viewers are admitted to emergency rooms for antenna related injuries including lacerated forearms, tongues, punctured knees and scratched corneas. Even our clothing can cause us harm: millions of women suffer damaged feet from wearing high-heeled shoes and every year poor understanding of the mechanics of bras leads to men suffering twisted or even fractured fingers when trying to remove their partner's lingerie.