Health statistics depressing with increased access to health care and no change in under five mortality and life expectancy goes down. Childhood mortality is only just below the highest rate in Sierra Leone. By comparison Australia is 4.4. Life expectancy is also low with Afghanistan in the bottom 10. Interestingly most of the shortest life expectancies are in Africa.
© Lu Guang / Finalist World Understanding Award
Wuhai City, Inner Mongolia. April 10, 2005. Workers in the factories have no immunity defenses. They get ill after one or two years on the job.
TONY EASTLEY: The Australian of the Year professor Patrick McGorry wants to see an immediate upgrade of mental health services to help arrest Australia's high rate of suicide.According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics more than 2,000 lives were lost in 2008.
Ashley Hall reports.
ASHLEY HALL: It's only been a couple of months since the University of Melbourne's professor of youth mental health Patrick McGorry was named the Australian of the Year but in that time he's received hundreds of letters and emails describing what he calls the tragic and corrosive impact of suicide on individuals and families.
PATRICK MCGORRY: It puts you know the human story into these terrible figures.
ASHLEY HALL: About six people die from suicide in Australia every day.
PATRICK MCGORRY: The magnitude of it is staggering. It's a huge public health challenge for Australia.
ASHLEY HALL: Patrick McGorry says it's high time the nation paid attention to the problem.
PATRICK MCGORRY: We are not seeing a reduction because the main driver of suicide is unrecognised, untreated or poorly treated mental ill health.
ASHLEY HALL: He says what's needed is a scaling up of mental health resources because only about a third of people who need help are getting it.
CAROLINE AEBERSOLD: It is critical that we have the right funding and the right sort of programs supported to address such an enormous health issue in Australia.
ASHLEY HALL: Caroline Aebersold is the vice chairwoman of Suicide Prevention Australia. She says to get the right response requires an accurate assessment of the extent of the problem.
CAROLINE AEBERSOLD: There are differences in the way that police record data. There are differences in the way coroners in different coronial courts and different laws allow coroners to report on suicide.
It is a good thing that the ABS has been changing its processes so that we can get a more accurate picture but unfortunately it is only one tip of the iceberg of what the nature of the problem of underreporting of suicide is.
ASHLEY HALL: Laura Kennan is the general manager of clinical support for Crisis Support Services which runs telephone support services including SuicideLine and Mensline.
LAURA KENNAN: We certainly know that each day we take up to 100 calls from people at risk of suicide across our services.
And certainly there would be many more out there who are not accessing the help that they need because they don't know where to go for help or they are afraid of speaking out about suicide or they just don't have ability within themselves to seek that support.
ASHLEY HALL: Professor McGorry says the Federal Government's promised major announcement on mental health reform couldn't come soon enough.
PATRICK MCGORRY: No-one is suggesting we should go back to the old separate structures of mental hospitals. But what we need is a modern 21st century model of care which is very strong on the community side, linked to primary care and reducing the downstream pressures on our very beleaguered acute hospital system.
TONY EASTLEY: The University of Melbourne's professor of youth mental health Patrick McGorry ending Ashley Hall's report.
If you need support with personal problems you can call Mensline Australia on 1300 789 978, Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467 and Lifeline on 13 11 14.
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In the US and UK in particular, were getting significantly fatter. For thousands of years, human body weight had stayed remarkably stable. Millions of calories passed through our bodies, yet with rare exceptions our weight neither rose nor fell. A perfect biological system seemed to be at work. Then, in the 80s, something changed.
Three decades ago, fewer than one Briton in 10 was obese. One in four is today. It is projected that by 2050, Britain could be a "mainly obese society". Similar, and even more pronounced, changes were taking place in the US, where researchers found that not only were Americans entering their adult years at a significantly higher weight but, while on average everyone was getting heavier, the heaviest people were gaining disproportionately more weight than others. The spread between those at the upper end of the weight curve and those at the lower end was widening. Overweight people were becoming more overweight.
What had happened to add so many millions of pounds to so many millions of people? Certainly food had become more readily available, with larger portion sizes, more chain restaurants and a culture that promotes out-of-home eating. But having food available doesn't mean we have to eat it. What has been driving us to overeat?
It is certainly not a want born of fear of food shortages. Nor is it a want rooted in hunger or the love of exceptional food. We know, too, that overeating is not the sole province of those who are overweight. Even people who remain slim often feel embattled by their drive for food. It takes serious restraint to resist an almost overpowering urge to eat. Yet many, including doctors and healthcare professionals, still think that weight gainers merely lack willpower, or perhaps self-esteem. Few have recognised the distinctive pattern of overeating that has become widespread in the population. No one has seen loss of control as its most defining characteristic.
"Higher sugar, fat and salt make you want to eat more." I had read this in scientific literature, and heard it in conversations with neuroscientists and psychologists. But here was a leading food designer, a Henry Ford of mass-produced food, revealing how his industry operates. To protect his business, he did not want to be identified, but he was remarkably candid, explaining how the food industry creates dishes to hit what he called the "three points of the compass".
Sugar, fat and salt make a food compelling. They stimulate neurons, cells that trigger the brain's reward system and release dopamine, a chemical that motivates our behaviour and makes us want to eat more. Many of us have what's called a "bliss point", at which we get the greatest pleasure from sugar, fat or salt. Combined in the right way, they make a product indulgent, high in "hedonic value".
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