28 April 2016

Here are some items that may interest readers

The WHO Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity (ECHO) 


Public Forum - A fair go for all: Addressing social and health inequities in Australia and internationally - 12 May 2016. The Forum will focus on what works and why in policy areas including: Indigenous affairs, urban environments, social protection/paid parental leave and health systems. The forum will start with a panel discussion entitled "How equitable is the Federal 2016 budget?” hosted by Paul Barclay, host of Big Ideas on ABC Radio National. This discussion will be broadcast on the Big Ideas radio program. For more information: http://www.anu.edu.au/events/a-fair-go-for-all-addressing-social-and-health-inequities-in-australia-and-internationally-0


UNICEF report - 'Fairness for Children' - released 14 April 2016. This Report Card presents an overview of inequalities in child well-being in 41 countries of the European Union (EU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It focuses on ‘bottom-end inequality’ – the gap between children at the bottom and those in the middle – and addresses the question ‘how far behind are children being allowed to fall?’ in income, education, health and life satisfaction. Visit: https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/830/?utm_source=m2news-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=html&utm_ca.


How can we increase children’s understanding of the social determinants of health? Why charitable drives in schools reinforce individualism, responsibilisation and inequity. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09581596.2014.935703 (if you want this article and can’t access it – please email.)

Abstract: This paper examines the ways in which neoliberal responses to social health issues shape the educational discourses and practices of schools. As schools are increasingly identified as ideal spaces for health promotion, the question of how and why educators and public health practitioners can and should work together continues to be debated. Using Bourdieu’s theory of reproduction, we use this indicative example of emergency food to examine how ‘charity alone’ models reproduce and perpetuate inequitable health outcomes in neoliberal societies. This individualistic view of health continues to work against public health and social justice education initiatives increasingly found in schools, curricula and wider society; creating a dissonance between rhetoric and reality. Revolutionary critical pedagogies are explored to examine the implications of these practices in schools, and how the framework of service learning may offer an approach for involving primary students in empathy, caring and social justice. We seek to extend the existing literature by exploring ways of shifting, rather than reproducing, the current practices of educators and public health practitioners in how children experience health inequality and the social determinants of health.


World Development Indicators 2016: Featuring the Sustainable Development Goals: http://data.worldbank.org/products/wdi


Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems - http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot?CMP=fb_gu