Designing a healthy food partnership: lessons from the Australian food and health dialogue

BACKGROUND: Poor diets are a leading cause of disease burden worldwide. In Australia, the Federal Government established the Food and Health Dialogue (the Dialogue) in 2009 to address this issue, primarily through food reformulation. We evaluated the Dialogue's performance over its 6 years of operation and used these findings to develop recommendations for the success of the new Healthy Food Partnership.

METHODS: We used information from the Dialogue website, media releases, communiqués, e-newsletters, materials released under freedom-of-information, and Parliamentary Hansard to evaluate the Dialogue's achievements from October 2013 to November 2015, using the RE-AIM (reach, efficacy, adoption, implementation and maintenance) framework. We also engaged closely with two former Dialogue members. Our findings update a prior assessment done in October 2013.

RESULTS: Little data is available to evaluate the Dialogue's recent achievements, with no information about progress against milestones released since October 2013. In the last 2 years, only one additional set of sodium reduction targets (cheese) was agreed and Quick Service Restaurant foods were added as an area for action. Some activity was identified in 12 of a possible 137 (9 %) areas of action within the Dialogue's mandate. Independent evaluation found targets were partially achieved in some food categories, with substantial variation in success between companies. No effects on the knowledge, behaviours or nutrient intake of the Australian population or evidence of impact on diet-related disease could be identified.

CONCLUSIONS: The new Healthy Food Partnership has similar goals to the Dialogue. While highly laudable and recognised globally as cost-effective, the mechanism for delivery in Australia has been woefully inadequate. Strong government leadership, adequate funding, clear targets and timelines, management of conflict of interest, comprehensive monitoring and evaluation, and a plan for responsive regulation in the event of missed milestones will be required if the new Healthy Food Partnership is to achieve its urgent public health goals.

Mega-events and the "Showcase" effect: investigating the moderating influence of exposure to the 2004 Olympic games telecast and interest in the Olympic movement- an Australian perspective

Survey-based research explored the moderating effects of "exposure" to the Australian free-to-air telecast of Athens 2004 and "interest" in Olympic Games in developing behavioral intentions to visit Greece in the future. Differences were found between groups with low and high levels of exposure to the telecast, and also between groups with high levels of interest in the Olympic Games, but these were only marginal. When the combinatorial influences of these two variables were considered simultaneously, their effects were generally synergistic. The article calls for further research on this area of mega-events, as the results, while of significance, provide food to continue the broader debate on the role of mega-events in developing tourism to their host destinations after their staging.

Further evidence on the corporate use of derivatives in Australia : the case of foreign currency and interest rate instruments

In a recent issue of this journal Nguyen and Faff (2002) reported on an empirical exploration of the motives behind the aggregate use of financial derivatives by Australian companies. Employing the same sample of firms, the current paper extends their analysis to investigate similar issues, this time focussing separately on foreign currency and interest rate derivatives. At a specific level, our results reveal the following. A firm is more likely to use foreign currency derivatives if it is large and has more debt in its capital structure. Interest rate derivatives, on the other hand, are more likely to be used if a firm is larger, more levered, more liquid and pays higher dividends. These results are consistent with existing hedging theories. Market to book value (proxying growth opportunities), however, portrays an inconsistent relationship with the likelihood of interest rate derivative usage. When it comes to the extent of usage, a firm uses foreign currency derivatives more extensively if it is smaller, pays higher dividends and has more debt. Similarly, interest rate derivatives are used more extensively to address a high level of debt and a high dividend payout policy. At a general level, the current study confirms the core finding of Nguyen and Faff (2002), namely, that Australian companies use derivatives with a view to value maximisation.

Sense of community in science fiction fandom, part 2: comparing neighborhood and interest group sense of community

There is much debate in community psychology literature as to the dimensions underlying the construct psychological sense of community (PSOC). One of the few theoretical discussions is that of McMillan and Chavis (1986), who hypothesized four dimensions: Belonging; Fulfillment of Needs; Influence; and Shared Emotional Connection. Debate has also emerged regarding the role of identification within PSOC. However, few studies have explored the place of identification in PSOC. In addition, while PSOC has been applied to both communities of interest and geographical communities, to date little research has compared a single group’s PSOC with a community of interest to their PSOC with their geographical communities. The current study explored PSOC with participants’ interest and geographical communities in a sample (N = 359) of members of science fiction fandom, a community of interest with membership from all over the world. Support emerged for McMillan and Chavis' (1986) four dimensions of PSOC, both within participants’ PSOC with their geographical communities and with their community of interest, with the addition of a fifth dimension, that of Conscious Identification. All dimensions emerged as significant predictors of overall sense of community in both community types. Participants reported higher levels of global PSOC with fandom than with their geographical communities, a pattern that also emerged across all factors separately. These results, and implications for PSOC research, are discussed.

Current findings on Australian children in postseparation disputes : outer conflict, inner discord

This paper sets out descriptive baseline data on the first 111 Australian families participating in a current study of the efficacy of child-focused and child-inclusive Family Law Mediation. The families come from the first of two treatment groups in that comparative study. While outcome data are not yet available on this group, the baseline data, gathered prior to intervention, are of interest and value. The paper describes the nature of parents' conflict with each other, the strength of their parental alliance, and the psychological functioning of their children at the time of presentation to the mediation service. High mental health risk for the children in these families is evident, both from parents' and children's perspectives. Uniquely, the paper includes the perceptions of 73 children about their parents' conflict and its impact on them. Implications are discussed, underscoring the imperative of early intervention with separating families that includes screening of the children's experience of conflict and their own needs for recovery.

‘Interest’ in Kierkegaard’s structure of consciousness

Kierkegaard’s identification of “consciousness” with “interest” (interesse) in his unfinished work Johannes Climacus adds a distinctive dimension to his phenomenology of subjectivity. Commentators, however, have largely identified interesse with lidenskab (“passion”), a conflation I argue to be mistaken, or have otherwise failed to note the structural implications of interesse for Kierkegaard’s account of cognition. I draw out these implications and argue that the Climacan account of interest as the experience of finding ourselves in-between ideality and reality implies, in the context of Kierkegaard’s trichotomous ontology of consciousness, a form of non-thetic self-referentiality built into cognition itself. This self-referentiality also has the intriguing implication of making consciousness itself inherently teleological.