Junk Food Draft #2

‘Junk food’ is commonly used to describe any unhealthy and low nutritional value food (Smith 2005). According to Weekend News (2005), the nutritional value of food consumed by Australian children has been decreasing progressively over the past 30 years. This shows the increased availability and consumption of fast food. The society becomes more aware of the effects from consuming the junk food, leading to arguments on whether the sale of the junk food should be banned or not. I strongly believe that sales of junk food should be banned due to the health reasons, litter problems and behavioural problems.

First of all, the consumption of junk food will lead to health problems among childhood as most of the junk foods contain synthetic flavour, colouring and food addictive. Junk foods like instant noodles, chips, soft drinks, and chocolate bars will increase the kilojoules intake and lead to weight gain (Weekend News). From the statistic in Australian Nutrition Journal (2004), foods eaten at home by 12-14 years old Australian children are unhealthy as they consume fats and sugar more than the recommended intake. Reynolds mentions that foods which are high in fat and sugar contribute to the problem of childhood obesity (Weekend News 2005). Childhood obesity will also leads to other diseases, for instance heart diseases, osteoarthritis, and some cancers (Weekend News 2005).

The sale of junk food in school canteen should be banned is also due to the litter problems. The packaging of the junk food is the major contributor to litter problems. Litter has negative effects to our safety and health, increases the cleaning cost, and damages the image of the communities (Smith 2005). To reduce the litter problems, schools need to cut down the sale of junk foods. This is further elaborated by Green, he states that after school canteen removed the sale of junk food and soft drink, time spends on cleaning become less and the school can spend more time on maintenance projects that benefit the school (The Food Show 2005).

Besides that, junk food can trigger behavioural problems in children. Addictives and chemical substances in the junk food will cause bad behaviours such as hyperactivity and poor concentration in children. When the junk foods are available at school, they will affect the healthy development and growth of students (The Food Show 2005). So, junk foods should be removed from the school. This is supported by Green, he comments that after removed junk food and soft drink from school canteen, the student become calmer after lunch and there is improvement in their behaviour in class.

As a conclusion, I strongly agree that the sale of junk food should be banned in the school canteen as it brings harm more than good to the children. In The Food Show (2005), Karimi says that students’ welfare, safety and health are the responsible of the schools, so schools need to take good care of the students. As the saying goes, “Prevention is better than cure”, to ensure the healthy lifestyle and development of the children, school should remove the junk food from the canteen and sell healthy and high nutritional value foods.

Baby Hayden

"The little tiger", Hayden Goh and Amanda.
Wah, Baby tiger just finish drinking milk, didn't make noice, and somemore smile at the camera. Haha!!!

Junk Food Draft #1

‘Junk food’ is commonly used to describe any unhealthy and low nutritional value food (Smith 2005). According to Weekend News (2005), the nutritional value of food consumed by Australian children has been decreasing progressively over the past 30 years. This shows the increased availability and consumption of fast food. The society becomes more aware of the effects from consuming the junk food, leading to arguments on whether the sale of the junk food should be banned or not. I strongly believe that sales of junk food should be banned due to the health reasons, litter problems and behavioural problems.

First of all, the consumption of junk food will lead to health problems among childhood as most of the junk foods contain synthetic flavour, colouring and food addictive. Junk foods like instant noodles, chips, soft drinks, and chocolate bars will increase the kilojoules intake and lead to weight gain (Weekend News). From the statistic in Australian Nutrition Journal (2004), foods eaten at home by 12-14 years old Australian children are unhealthy as they consume fats and sugar more than the recommended intake. Reynolds mentions that foods which are high in fat and sugar contribute to the problem of childhood obesity (Weekend News 2005). Childhood obesity will also leads to other diseases, for instance heart diseases, osteoarthritis, and some cancers (Weekend News 2005).

The sale of junk food in school canteen should be banned is also due to the litter problems. The packaging of the junk food is the major contributor to litter problems. Litter has negative effects to our safety and health, increases the cleaning cost, and damages the image of the communities (Smith 2005). To reduce the litter problems, schools need to cut down the sale of junk foods. Green states that after school canteen removed the sale of junk food and soft drink, time spends on cleaning become less and the school can spends more time on maintenance projects that benefit the school (The Food Show 2005).

Besides that, junk food can trigger behavioural problems in children. Addictives and chemical substances in the junk food will cause bad behaviours such as hyperactivity and poor concentration in children. When the junk foods are available at school, they will affect the healthy development and growth of students (The Food Show 2005). So, junk foods should be removed from the school. This is supported by Green, he comments that after removed junk food and soft drink from school canteen, the student becomes calmer after lunch and there is improvement in their behaviour in class.

As a conclusion, I strongly agree that the sale of junk food should be banned in the school canteen as it brings harm more than goods to the children. In The Food Show (2005), Karimi says that students’ welfare, safety and health are the responsible of the schools, so schools need to take good care of the students. As the saying goes, “Prevention is better than cure”, to ensure the healthy lifestyle and development of the children, school should remove the junk food from the canteen and sell healthy and high nutritional value foods.

Aussie News 5: Thousands stranded after ash from volcanic eruption grounds flights in Europe

• Qantas flights to UK and Germany cancelled
• May not resume until Sunday
• Tens of thousands of travellers affected

QANTAS has cancelled all of today's flights from Australia to the UK and Germany due to the closure of European air space after a spread of ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland.

Qantas spokesman David Epstein said flights may not resume their regular schedules until Sunday

"Today unfortunately we are unable to get clearance into the UK air space, so we will not be operating any inbound flights into Europe today and we would expect it may be some time before we're able to do so," Mr Epstein said.

He advised passengers due to travel to Europe to check the airline's website for updates, rather than contacting the airport.

Qantas passengers travelling to Singapore have been offered a new service, QF8031 which is scheduled to operate Sydney-Melbourne-Singapore.

In addition to services cancelled to Europe today, QF29 will not operate Melbourne to Hong Kong.

QF1 will operate Sydney to Bangkok only for passengers who have Bangkok as their final travel destination.

Services from Bangkok and Singapore back to Australia will operate as scheduled.

Passengers travelling on the cancelled services will be offered to be transferred to next scheduled services or be given a refund.

Tens of thousands of travellers including Australians have been affected as 10 European countries cancelled up to 5000 flights in the biggest air space closure since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Britain has extended its ban on most non-emergency flights in its airspace by six hours to 7pm local time (4am Saturday AEST) due to the ash.

Airports in France, Belgium, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Poland have also closed air space.

Flights between North America and Europe face major disruptions, with half of all services expected to be cancelled today.

European flight coordinator Eurocontrol said planes could stay grounded for at least 48 hours.

The Eyjafjallajokull volcanic eruption in southeast Iceland is showing no signs of abating after 40 hours of activity, University of Iceland geophysicist Pall Einarsson said.

"The seismographs are showing that since this morning the intensity of the eruption seems to be growing," he said.

Although not visible from the ground, volcanic ash can be highly dangerous for aircraft, clogging up the engines and reducing visibility.

Critique:

Volcanic ash is highly dangerous for the air craft, so Qantas cancelled all the flights from Australia to UK and Germany. Qantas makes this decision is to protect the safety of their passengers. As the saying goes, " Safety come first", they cannot put their passengers lives in danger.

Text Production Final Draft

What are the potential effects of global warming in terms of the climate change and how can they be arrested?

Global warming is a worldwide concern. Global warming is the increase in the Earth’s temperature due to emission of greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere and warm up the Earth. However, the burning of gasoline and fossil fuels increases the concentration of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. As a result, the Earth becomes warmer. According to Holli Riebeek (2007), the average Earth’s surface temperature has increased from 0.6 to 0.9 degree Celsius in the past century and it is believed that the temperature will keep on increasing in the next century. Global warming causes some potential impacts in terms of the climate change to us, so prompt actions should be taken to solve this problem to prevent it from getting worse.

Global warming has influenced the weather conditions on Earth. It leads to more hot days and fewer cool days. Report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed that there are increase in both heat waves and intense rain events during the past 50 years (Riebeek 2007). Global warming causes bigger and more destructive storms to some area and it also leads to more widespread drought to some countries for example Niger and Darfur. The erratic weather patterns could lead to hurricanes, tornados or typhoons bringing catastrophe and loss of lives.

Another significant impact of global warming is the rise of the sea levels. This is caused by the rising of the temperature. As the temperature increases, the oceans become warmer, causing the ice caps and glaciers melt more quickly (Woodford 2006). Consequently, the sea levels increase. This will cause serious problems to the population lives in the coastal area. In the film An Inconvenient Truth (2007), the main character Al Gore comments that if the sea levels increase tremendously, it will cause some low-land area for instance Beijing, San Francisco bay, New York City and Netherlands to be inundated.

In addition, global warming also affects the ecosystems of our planet. As the temperature increases, plants and animals have to adapt themselves to the new weather conditions. If they are unable to do so, they will face extinction. There is a prediction shows that thirty to forty percents of the species in the world will be at risk of extinction due to global warming (Woodford, 2006). Besides that, in the film An Inconvenient Truth (2007), Al Gore states that global warming also causes the problem of infectious diseases, development of new diseases like SARS, Arena virus and Lyme Diseases, and reemergence of some old diseases such as Avian flu and West Nile Virus.

Immediate actions should be taken to solve the global warming issue as it brings detrimental effects to our Earth. One of the solutions is to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions. Chris Woodford (2006) suggests that we can use less energy technology, switch to renewable energy, use energy-saving fluorescent and reduce the usage of car. Governments also have the responsibility to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions. They should restrict the uses of the harmful chemicals to reduce global warming. In the film An Inconvenient Truth (2007), Al Gore says that we are able to solve the global warming problems and although each of us is the causes of the global warming, each of us also has the choice to change it. We just need to have the determination to solve the problems.

As a conclusion, global warming brings many negative effects like erratic and more extreme weather, rising of sea levels and impacts on ecosystems. Cooperation of every nation in the world is required to solve the problem. Everyone bears this responsibility as the Earth is our only home. We have to try our best to overcome this global environmental challenge.