TV journalist shares with students
Archive for September, 2012
NBN News face up front
Thursday, September 27, 2012Correspondence
Thursday, September 27, 2012Sweet Poison
It is well known that during the Cuban missile crisis the import of sugar (“Sugar hit,” Connections Vol 25 No 18) to the US plummeted, and so did the curve for the incidence of cancer. I wonder why?
Belle Gillespie-Howard
www.facebook.com/avondaleaustralia
Comment
Using anything in excess will have a negative effect on our health and wellbeing. Sugars and fats are an everyday part of most people’s diet. It’s the amount of each consumed and how they’re presented that’s important. Fruits are a valuable source of natural sugars for the brain, for example. It’s not enough to “ban” all forms of sugar just because it’s potentially not good for us in certain forms.
Sonja Garbutt
wp.avondale.edu.au/news
Reply
Correspondence
Thursday, September 13, 2012Sweet Poison
Interestingly, two of the main critics of David Gillespie (“Sugar hit,” Connections Vol 25 No 18) are Australia’s leading defenders of added sugar in food as harmless. Awkwardly, these high-profile The University of Sydney scientists are involved in a dispute about unscholarly behaviour in the publication of a pair of supposedly peer reviewed scientific papers that falsely claim an inverse relationship between the consumption of refined sugar and obesity.
Rory Robertson
wp.avondale.edu.au/news
Reply
The brain feeds exclusively on glucose, so if we eliminate all sugar from our diet, we risk our brain health. The problem is not the sugar but the form and the amount in which we consume it. For example, fructose can be harmful if we take it out of the fruit and consume it as a concentrate. The emphasis should be on consuming whole foods not isolates. Our body may be able to compensate for the other missing elements while we are young, but as we age, we will reap what we have sown.
Jasmin Kukolja
wp.avondale.edu.au/news
Reply
Good point, Josh. There is a lot more to a healthy diet than avoiding sugar. It’s not what we leave out that is most important, but what we put in (ie. fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds, legumes). I’d sooner have an extra piece or two of fruit full of antioxidants and phytochemicals than a fat-laden hamburger.
Julie Baum
wp.avondale.edu.au/news
Reply
Good to see some common sense health advice from Avondale’s staff and students, despite the fanfare surrounding David Gillespie’s lectures.
Kyle Morrison
www.facebook.com/avondaleaustralia
Comment
Social Justice Week
Raising awareness becomes pointless after a while because everyone thinks it’s someone else’s responsibility to step out and do something about it. Time to stop talking and get out and do something.
John Dickson
www.facebook.com/avondaleaustralia
Comment
Dig wells not graves
Thursday, September 6, 2012Are you an advocate for basic human rights?
Alexandra Radovan
Bachelor of Arts student
Avondale College of Higher Education
An advocate protects and raises awareness of the human rights of others. During Social Justice Week, students at Avondale College of Higher Education are campaigning for the rights of those in Nepal who lack access to safe drinking water and to clean toilets, which dramatically reduces quality of life.
We’re blessed in Australia with constant access to abundant amounts of clean water and to sanitation services. So, we have the ability, and responsibility, to help those who are less fortunate.
God wants us to act in response to injustice. Themes in Proverbs suggest we should not withhold good from those who deserve it.
According to the United Nations General Assembly, safe and clean drinking water and sanitation is a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life. The United Nations designed the Millennium Development Goals to halve poverty by 2015. Goal seven focuses on the rights of every individual to have access to safe drinking water, improved sanitation and appropriate hygiene.
Did you know 773 million people still live without access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion still don’t have access to decent sanitation?
Today, 3000 children died from water, sanitation and hygiene related causes. At the current level of development, we will not reach the target to halve the proportion of people without access to improved sanitation until 2026. Basic human rights are being violated daily, and the question is, what are we going to do about it? It’s time to give poverty the flush.
Patrick McDonald, founder of the non-government organisation Viva Network, has said: “Why is it that one child’s death amounts to a tragedy, but the death of millions is merely a statistic?”
Our objective during Social Justice Week is to empower one village in Nepal by raising money to dig wells and not graves for children.
Will you help?
Alexandra Radovan is a Bachelor of Arts student majoring in communication and international poverty and development studies at Avondale College of Higher Education.