Public Health Strategies Part 4C: Bans, Steven Hamley Bans on Unhealthy Foods In earlier blog posts I discussed taxes and subsidies as public health strategies, mainly related to the current more popular calls to tax sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs) and subsidise fruit and vegetables. In researching those posts I came to the conclusion that both Read More
Public Health Strategies Part 4B: Subsidies, Steven Hamley In an earlier blog post I discussed taxation as a public health strategy, particularly related to the proposed tax on sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs) in Australia. In this post I’m going to look at the opposite of taxation: subsidies. Putting a tax on unhealthy foods would generate Read More
In an earlier post I mentioned a few different commonly proposed public health strategies, and how most of them fit quite nicely into a political spectrum characterised by an authoritarian-libertarian axis and a left-right axis. In this post I’ll discuss the strategy of taxation/subsidies, which I thought fits nicely into the authoritarian left quadrant. This is because this strategy holds the food environment primarily responsible for people not adopting healthy lifestyle behaviours rather than personal responsibility, and then uses government controls to manipulate the free market.
By Steven Hamley In an earlier post I mentioned a few different commonly proposed public health strategies, and how most of them fit quite nicely into the political spectrum characterised by an authoritarian-libertarian axis and a left-right axis. In this post I’ll discuss the strategy of education, which I thought fits nicely into the libertarian Read More
By Steven Hamley If you find one of the ideas in these posts on public health strategies objectionable consider waiting before jumping to conclusions because I may address your concerns in a later post In an earlier post I mentioned a few different commonly proposed public health strategies, and how most of them fit quite nicely into Read More
This is the first part of a Public Health series written by Steven Hamley. Steven is a PhD candidate who will be speaking at the AHSNZ Symposium in Queenstown, 20-22 October 2017. The prevalence of obesity and other chronic diseases is quite a problem whether you approach this by looking at the burden on medical systems or simply Read More
This post follows on from Part 1 – On 21st Century Excesses & Deficiencies. Dr Karen Faisandier gives her thoughts on how to restore yourself to your most optimal level of wellbeing after physical and mental health difficulties, using a range of nutritional and lifestyle interventions. Symptoms of physical and mental health difficulties often co-occur via the gut-brain-axis Read More
Dr. Karen Faisandier provides an overview of her talk in late 2016, under the auspices of AHSNZ. This talk was part of a women’s wellness event with Dr Lara Briden and Dr Anastasia Boulais. Karen discussed the psychological expression of physical excesses and deficiencies. Here is part one of her summary of the talk, including Read More
There seem to be no silver bullets. Causation at the molecular level, deep inside the body, appears to be beyond our current reach. But what about pushing against the ultimate cause – not within us, but in the outside world? Are we fated to follow the New Zealanders’ folly, causing damage with every effort to treat? Or, can we learn what external forces have made us so chronically ill, and push back there?
Any discussion about health and well-being, whether at your doctor’s office, office tearoom or over a coffee with friends, inevitably focuses on weight loss. As a society, we are preoccupied with our relationship with gravity and we often judge our health, social success and overall happiness against that marker.
