Childhood obesity is a major health issue in modern economies around the world, but many parents are resistant to receiving health warnings about their children’s weight. 

New research from New Zealand has found that while nearly two-thirds of parents would like to be made aware if their children’s weight was putting their health at risk, they would find the news upsetting and worrying.

A new study which explores gender differences in relationship to the influence of parents’ alcohol consumption has found that heavy episodic drinking is a risk factor for adolescent drinking.

Jacqueline Homel from the Griffith Criminology Institute and Diana Warren from the Australian Institute of Family Studies, looked at a sample of 2800 14-15 year-olds living in two-parent households from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children.

A national eating disorder organisation, The Butterfly Foundation, has launched a digital body image program for adolescent boys called RESET. The program is designed to give boys the opportunity to talk about the pressures they face and concerns they experience in relation to body image

International Men’s Day (IMD) is celebrated on 19th November every year and is marked in around 80 countries worldwide.

To help more people get involved and mark the day, the Australian Men’s Health Forum (AMHF) has launched a new International Men’s Day website under the theme “Talking About Men”.

Work on developing a new National Male Health Strategy is now underway, with public consultations expected to take place in late 2018/early 2019. The Federal Health Minister, Greg Hunt, hosted a National Male Health Forum at Parliament House in Canberra in August, to kick start discussions on the strategy.

Source:  UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESO) has published a policy paper on gender equality in education that warns “don’t forget the boys”.

Boys’ Education is a key men’s health issues as lower levels of education are linked to poorer health. Put another way, improving boys’ education, improves men’s health. 

According to UNESCO, boys are at greater risk of failing to progress and complete their secondary education in many countires. Moreover, boys perform increasingly less well in assessments of reading skills worldwide, a fact that continues to puzzle policy-makers.

As the UN’s sustainable development goals have committed the world to achieving universal completion of secondary education by 2030, it is important to take note of boys’ continuing disadvantage in several countries at this level, says the report.

UNESCO also claims that actively addressing boys’ disadvantage in education could be transformative in promoting gender equality, reducing violence and protecting youth from risk factors that could distort their futures.

The agency’s paper describes the extent of the problem, examines where and why it occurs and explores possible solutions. It concludes that entrenched gender norms negatively affect the education outcomes not only of girls, but also of boys.

Gender expectations pull poor boys out of school and into unskilled jobs that do not require secondary school completion, say the report’s authors.

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Achieving gender equality in education: don’t forget the boys