News Update Continued 3

Friday November 2nd 2007

There is only one truly relevant story in the news today with regards to primary school children. This is the criticism of the hundreds of millions of pounds spent on the literacy hour, to which there has been little effect. In defence some have said that there has been an increased stress on pupils and teachers, but that truthfully there has been little change in the standards of reading since the 1950’s.

In the news regarding “young people” there were stories as follows:

A tour around the region will be showing 10,000 young motorists the consequences of reckless driving and not wearing seatbelts, in order to reduce the number of road accidents and fatalities.

A teenager was sexually assaulted at 5pm in Oxford.

The youngest solider to be injured has been awarded compensation of £57k, however his medical costs is approximately £46k. The young solider is in a wheel chair, uses a colostomy bag and has lost the use of one of his arms. Since being in hospital he has contracted 3 “bugs” which have continued to hold him back from the recovery he hopes to make. The family and forces are outraged at the treatment of someone that has risked their life for the country only to be paid a meagre amount of money. He had hoped the money would help him set up a business with his brother, as he will never be able to go out to work as most of the population do. However this money will be of little support to him in starting up a new company and so his future is uncertain.

One of the most disturbing but at the same time understandable stories was that of healthy eating, something that if we as adults can’t get right then there is little hope of passing the “good behaviour” onto our children.

Millions are ignoring the advice given on healthy eating e.g. 60% ignore the advice provided in a supermarket, 20% ignore the advice of ‘an apple a day’, with a quarter of people not trusting the advice on red meat and alcohol.

This is understandable as there is much conflicting advice out there, one day we are told not to eat this but that is ok in moderation and then the next day we are told actually we have no idea what this does to you and that shouldn’t be eaten EVER. What advice should we follow, they say we are ignoring the advice; maybe we are following some different advice, the one given yesterday not today. However our country is becoming overly obese and this is something we can’t hide from. We all need to promote healthy eating and a healthy life style, the specialist should set the example and we can follow leading our children in to a fitter future.