sport

The high cost of accommodating population growth: "It is really undesirable that turning Seaford and Frankston into 'Transport hubs' is denying residents, and especially children, proper use of the amenities they have previously enjoyed."

18 August 2019
Letter to Frankston Council

Dear Councillors,

Despite much of the land around Seaford station being increasing converted to car parking for train commuters, also the parking at Seaford North reserve is now entirely filled with commuting traffic.

I wish you to record my objection to this use of the Reserve parking, of which at least half should be timed so as to allow reserve users to use the car-park - which is the real purpose of that car park.

Children and their parents who use the reserve during the day and at the end of the day need to park in surrounding streets - creating problems there, and requiring parents with young kids, and often babies, to have walk considerable distances because of the commuters taking up all the car parks.

I know - as a former teacher - that schools used to use the reserve during the day - with many buses of kids using the car-park for sports days and parents also coming to park and watch for some or all of the day. That would not be possible now, and presumably the park is not used in this way anymore.

It is really undesirable that turning Seaford and Frankston into 'Transport hubs' is denying residents, and especially children, proper use of the amenities they have previously enjoyed.

I therefore ask if you could please consider making at least half of the car-parking at Seaford North Reserve available for park users only - a 6 hour limit on parking there would be sufficient for this.

I look forward to reading your response.

Regards,

Mathew Mitchell
Seaford, Victoria
Australia

Multiple recent studies have linked alcohol advertising with children drinking alcohol earlier, and at dangerous levels. On Wednesday 10 October 2018, Australian sporting legends and leading public health advocates will rally together to launch End Alcohol Advertising in Sport, a campaign calling for an end to alcohol advertising in our major sporting codes.

A number of Australian sporting legends have joined the ranks of End Alcohol Advertising in Sport, a national campaign endorsed by the country’s leading public health and medical organisations.

The official End Alcohol Advertising in Sport campaign Ambassadors will be revealed at the campaign launch event on Wednesday 10 October in Melbourne’s iconic sporting precinct, Olympic Park.

Multiple recent studies have linked alcohol advertising with children drinking alcohol earlier, and at dangerous levels. A new report to be released at the launch will again highlight the proliferation of alcohol advertising during the 2018 football grand finals.

Australian sporting legends and End Alcohol Advertising in Sport campaign

The article by Robert Bridge, quoted and linked to inside, speculates on obesity being a factor in the United States' poor performance in the PyeongChang olympic games. It includes a graph of order of obesity in OECD countries. Australia is the fifth highest obesity country. Japan is the lowest. My money is on high fructose additions to our diets, such as corn-syrup. Dr Lustig University of California San Francisco, Division of Pediatric Endocrinology, has been putting this message out for some time in fascinating scientific videos, including, "Fat Chance" and "The skinny on obesity." I have embedded "Fat chance" in the quoted material from the article inside.

Now that the Olympic torch in PyeongChang has been extinguished and the athletes and fans have gone home, the US is wrestling with its worst performance in 20 years. Could obesity rates be taking a toll on US athletic performance? On the surface, Team USA’s total haul of 23 medals, which included nine golds, seems rather respectable. It put the United States in fourth place, behind Norway, Germany and Canada. But not everyone went home satisfied, and least of all the US Olympic Committee, which had predicted US athletes would win at least 37 medals. Not only were the Americans bested by three countries which, combined, make up just one-third of the US population (Norway, which won 39 gold medals in PyeongChang, has just 5.2 million people), it was their worst performance since the 1998 Nagano Games. The situation looks even more troubling when we consider that the US fielded 242 athletes at PyeongChang, the largest-ever delegation in the history of the Winter Games.

The US has been spending wads of cash in an effort to get the most from its athletes. The amount forked over to Winter sports in the years 2015-16 increased by nearly six percent from the previous Olympic 2011-2012 cycle, AP reported. Alas, all that extra cash has produced little in way of gold. Since the 2010 Vancouver Games, America’s total medal haul in the Winter Games has been on the decline (37, 28 and 23, respectively).

“We have this amazing depth. We have these incredible medalists,” Alan Ashley, US chief of sport performance told reporters following the closing ceremony. He then ventured the question: “How do we continue to compete even at a higher level and give them what they need going forward?”

What is the source of this decline? Since it does not seem related to a lack of funding, or a shortage of potential athletes, could there be particular sociocultural reasons at play, for example particular health factors? As was already acknowledged by the US government back in 2012, when it partnered with Olympic and Paralympic athletes to get more than 1.7 million children involved in sports through Michelle Obama’s "Let's Move!" initiative, obesity is a serious issue that is only getting worse.

A recent study put out by the OECD predicts that by the year 2030, almost 50 percent of Americans will be considered as clinically obese. In 13 states, that number could actually exceed 60 percent.

While there seems to be little research to date on the subject, a 2016 policy paper put out by the American Development Model (ADM) in cooperation with the US Olympics Committee (USOC) suggests that America’s sporting officials are aware of the problem when it warned: “The percentage of obese children ages 6-11 increased from 7 percent in 1980 to 18 percent in 2010. Among children ages 12 to 19, that figure grew from 5 percent to 18 percent.” The paper goes on to detail how parents, schools and sporting clubs can alter their lifestyles and dietary choices to become better athletes.

Read more at https://www.rt.com/op-ed/420669-obesity-usa-olympics-pyeongchang/

The following article, together with an embedded 1:36 minute video, was previously published on the English language edition of the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on 14 May. See also: Australian boxers fighting for peace in Syria (26/5/16) | SBS and other republished SANA articles: Australian sport delegation concludes visit to Lattakia (19/5/16) and Australian boxing team conducts friendly matches with Syrian national team (14/15/16).

The Australian Boxing Team visiting Syria in solidarity with its fight against terrorism conducted yesterday a series of exercises preparing for a set of matches today in Fayhaa Sports City.

Rev. David Smith, head of the Australian delegation, a boxer and a cleric, said in a statement to SANA:" We want to draw the attention of the world to the fact that Syria is alive, and there are still life and joy and sports here, not just death and destruction; which is always the message broadcasted on television. We are doing that through sport because we want to play with our friends here and build more relations with Australian and Syrian people, and we want to show the whole world the real Syria and the real Syrian people"

Smith pointed out that this is his fifth visit to Syria in the last four years, and that he is working on building relations between the Syrian and Australian people.

"We would love to see more cooperation between Syria and Australia in every level but certainly in sports, and the Syrian players are very good and strong, and can win any team in the world." Smith added.

For his part, the honorary consul of Syria in Australia Maher Dabbagh said that the Australian team includes distinguished boxers who have a heroic history in Australia, indicating that the team's visit has a significant impact on reflecting the reality of what is happening in Syria in its fight against terrorism.

Head of Syrian Boxing Federation Issa Nassar, highlighted that the Australian team's visit to Syria includes an array of games with the national team in Damascus as well as in Latakia.

The Australian Boxing Team is visiting Syria for the second time under the slogan "Boxers for Peace", joined by a media team to document the visit and sports activities, and other tourist activities to show the real image of Syria in the Australian media.