Missing the point about 'male, pale and stale' label

Many of you will have seen Karl du Fresne's excellent column either in the DomPost or at his site. The response is still ongoing with another letter appearing today. So belatedly I've thrown my two cent's worth in:

Dear Editor

Most of Karl du Fresne's critics (Male, pale and stale, May 31) have missed his main point - the great irony of  'liberals' using intentionally insulting language about the sex, skin colour and age of an entire group who have no control over these characteristics.

But as so many want to talk about the privilege of the white male baby-boomers, lets do it. As young men they grew up in a society with strict expectations about how they would conduct their lives. Corralled into shot-gun marriages, made the compulsory breadwinner of the family, pursued by the courts if they rejected this task; channelled into menial, repetitive jobs in car manufacturing, the meat works or railways; only a select few went to university and became professionals. Stuck in their economic class because the country was yet to become innovative and export- diverse (beyond agriculture). No cheap cars or cheap air travel.  No internet shopping, decent bars and cafes, or mobile phones. No credit cards. Earning, scrimping  and saving was the restrictive routine for most.

I very much doubt today's generation would exchange their freedom and choice for young adulthood in the 1960s where homogeneity and conformity ruled. Privilege? Not a lot.

More Maori and Pacific medical students

The University of Otago has never seen so many Māori students studying to be doctors, new research from the New Zealand Medical Journal shows.

There are any number of ways this good news story can be negatively interpreted.

Quotas?

Why do Maori patients need Maori doctors?

How 'Maori' are they anyway?


Frankly my interest in the race and reverse discrimination debate is minimal.

However it happens, whatever it means,  I'm happy to  note and broadcast this development.

Pro Vice Chancellor Peter Crampton said the increase in Māori and Pacific students was a positive step in ensuring health workers in the future better reflect the people of New Zealand.
"This is the vision: that when you and I engage with the healthcare system, wherever we may engage, it might be with our own doctor, or with the nurse or with the hospital or with the physiotherapist, or the pharmacist, that there is every likelihood we would be engaging with a Māori health professional.
"We want that to be normal, and in the past that has not been normal."

Lots of 'ifs' and 'maybes'

In 2009 KickStart breakfast programmes were introduced into schools. Fonterra provided milk and Sanitarium cereals. Government provided subsidy. MSD published an evaluation study today.

It appears there is robust modelling to show some improvement in dental outcomes (though modest). But I smile over other findings.

Attempts to find better bone health for instance:

"We see no evidence of a significant association between KickStart intensity and the two administrative indicators of fracture. One possible explanation is that KickStart intensity had no association with bone health. Another is that students who received more KickStart were more active as a result of increased energy intake. Falls may have increased at the same time as the likelihood of fracture upon falling was reduced as a result of improvements in bone health."

Then there is more speculation:

 -KickStart may have improved the nutritional quality of the breakfasts consumed by students. This mechanism is suggested by a study by Bhattacharya et al. (2006) which examined the United States School Breakfast Program. 

-The effect of the breakfasts may have been to displace consumption of unhealthy snack foods, including sugary food and drinks, as suggested by the cross-sectional study conducted by Utter and colleagues (2007).

-Reduced pressure on home budgets as a result of KickStart may have allowed families and whānau to purchase higher quality foods to eat at other times of the day and week. Such spillover effects are suggested by the Bhattacharya et al. (2006) study, which found that both adults and preschool children had healthier diets and lower percentages of calories from fat when the School Breakfast Program was available to school-aged children in the household.(My emphasis)

From this it is then inferred:

 If Kickstart caused improvements in diet and caused sugary food and drinks to be displaced, this would suggest that benefits might also include reduced obesity and improvements in learning, health and development (Thornley et al., 2017a), including
reductions in rheumatic fever (Thornley et al., 2017b). (my emphasis)

I hope all of these improvements come to pass and feel somewhat sorry that the researchers were unable to conclude very much at all.

Apologies

If you have posted a comment recently and not seen it appear, that's because unbeknownst to me it has been sitting in 'awaiting moderation'. Mr Wahlberg kindly drew the 'disappearing' comments to my attention and discussions with a fellow blogger led me to where they were.

I will continue with moderation but ensure that your VALUED comments are published in future.