Mentholatum Responsebeta
UNWELL-COMING KIDS
Britain's sickliest kids live in York, a study revealed yesterday (Sun).
Children who live in and around the North Yorkshire city have fallen ill with more colds, bugs and viruses over the last 12 months than children anywhere else in Britain.
Researchers found parents in York have been forced to stay off work four times in the last year to care for their offspring.
Kids in York also took more days off school, took longer to get over illnesses - averaging three days, and suffered from more headaches and stomach upsets.
Second place in the study of 4,000 parents was the seaside resort of Brighton, followed by Coventry in third. Bristol was fourth and Edinburgh completed the top five.
Wolverhampton kids were revealed as the healthiest bunch - taking only two days off school and being unwell just three times in 12 months.
Yesterday (Sun) a spokesman for Mentholatum Responsebeta, a hand sanitizer which fights bacteria and viruses said: ''Schools have always been a breeding ground for germs but the differences across the UK are striking.
''Increases in antibiotic resistance mean doctors are rightly cautious about giving out prescription drugs unnecessarily and we should focus on prevention over cure.
''But it isn't easy to keep children at home every time they feel poorly.
''More than half these parents said they sometimes feel forced to take their unwell child to school because they're either worried about how they will be viewed in the office or won't get paid.
''Employers need to be sympathetic to this issue.''
The survey quizzed parents on a number of factors about their child's health.
Youngsters living in York have had at least 11 headaches, eight colds, seven tummy aches and have taken the most time off school.
They stayed at home at least three times in the last year and have taken two and a half days to fully recover each time.
They've also visited the doctor the most, who have tended to send them away rather than prescribe medicine and picked up the most bugs at school.
Common sense advice was confirmed as areas in which infectious children were often taken to school had higher rates of illness overall.
York parents are most guilty of leaving their children in the playground knowing they weren't 100 per cent ok.
But while York topped the majority of categories, other cities also fared quite badly.
Mums in Brighton dish out the most cough medicine - at least three times a month and kids in Aberdeen often feel under the weather leaving parents puzzled as to what's wrong with them.
Cambridge mums are most likely to keep their children home at the first sign of a sniffle, while those living in Coventry refuse to take their child out of school unless they have serious symptoms of cold or flu.
Plymouth mums try and send their kids back to school at the first sign of improvement.
Along with York, more than half of kids in Edinburgh have tried to 'pull a sickie' in the last 12 months.
The study found children in Britain are most likely to suffer from colds (63 per cent), tummy bugs (34 per cent), ear infection (16 per cent) and flu (15 per cent).
And they enjoy just 2 hours and 49 minutes of fresh air a day.
TOP 20 CITIES WITH SICKLIEST KIDS
1. York
2. Brighton
3. Coventry
4. Bristol
5. Edinburgh
6. Cardiff
7. Cambridge
8. Aberdeen
9. Birmingham
10. Leeds
11. Portsmouth
12. London
13. Swansea
14. Glasgow
15. Sheffield
16. Leicester
17. Plymouth
18. Southampton
19. Liverpool
20. Newcastle
