In Australia, nearly one third of our national population — approximately 7 million Australians — live in rural and remote areas. For all the complex reasons that health and place are associated, the health of this spatially, economically, socially and culturally distinct group is generally quantitatively and qualitatively different to — and often significantly poorer than — that of those living in major cities
These are times where one should question how we, as members of society, will formulate meaningful responses to the ever-increasing global complexity: what is the world that our children will grow up in like? How can today’s crises empower parents and children across the globe to cease the current political standstill and instead implement sustainable strategies to prevent further destruction?
Fifty years ago, the very notion of adolescence, teenagers and youth was only starting to be recognised as a ‘life stage’, with little appreciation of the significance of health issues affecting the young at this time. Even 30 years ago, if you had asked people to describe which life stage they thought was the healthiest, many would unthinkingly have said ‘adolescence’
We are living in the future. No, seriously ... we are, it is true! What was once mere ideas introduced to us through the minds of science-fiction writers has now materialised in the world around us
Some time back, I was reading the death notices in The Age, as one does, of course, when one retires and returns to Melbourne! One death notice intrigued me
Two thousand and twenty has been a surprising and challenging year for many young people, with the unimaginable emergence of a global pandemic and dramatic changes to our day-to-day lives. In the background, before the coronavirus was even contemplating jumping from bats to humans, there had been a global awakening that climate change is real and dangerous, especially among the young populations of the world
Historically, psychology has focused almost exclusively on identifying and alleviating problems. We have done a fantastic job of helping people overcome and deal with stress and depression and anxiety and more but ... is that really all we want for life? For too long, we have assumed that an absence of problems is as good as it gets, but is it? If you want more than just an ‘OK’ life, then keep reading
This chapter proffers a new and exciting approach to managing NCDs that is based on the principles of positive psychology ... it should not be considered as being mutually exclusive of the more traditional approaches, which clearly have an important role to play
At first sight these seem like very strange bedfellows. In this chapter, I will explain how seeking to understand swarming in locusts has led to new discoveries on the dietary causes of human obesity and ageing, as well as provided an understanding of locust swarming that links neurophysiological events within the brains of individual insects to continental scale mass migration
The constantly evolving nature and extreme complexities of nutrition science have created an environment and perception of the science that is frequently muddled, misrepresented and often downright incorrect within general public discourse. The inexact nature of nutrition science (as opposed to physics, which has more known knowns) and the time-constrained and agenda-driven media will often poorly report on or misrepresent facts as we know them