Category: Education

Government funded stop smoking services will keep losing customers if they refuse to help people who want to try vaping, new research has found. The services are in a bind however because the legality of selling nicotine vaping products in New Zealand remains in doubt.

The previous National-led Government claimed nicotine vaping products could not be legally imported and sold in New Zealand, but late last year they promised new regulations to allow the sale of nicotine e-cigarettes and e-liquids. Last week National MP Nicky Wagner, who championed the promised law change, introduced a private member’s bill to get vaping back on the Government’s agenda.

Vaping researcher Professor Marewa Glover, from Massey University’s School of Health Sciences says, six months in to the new Labour Government’s term, “all Associate Minister of Health Jenny Salesa has said on the matter is that she didn’t know what their position on e-cigarettes was going to be.” 

She adds: “Two weeks ago Judge Patrick Butler dismissed a Ministry of Health case against tobacco giant Philip Morris on the grounds that the iQos Heets product could not be considered a ‘chewing’ tobacco product, which would be banned under the Smoke-Free Environments Act [SFEA]. His ruling could equally apply to nicotine vaping products, meaning they can be legally imported and sold in New Zealand. Of greater significance, he concluded that the Ministry of Health’s prosecution, which sought to restrict smokers’ access to an alternative less harmful product was the ‘opposite of what Parliament sought to achieve when passing the SFEA’.”

Judge Butler’s questioning of the health authority’s attempt to undermine people’s chance to stop smoking by switching to use of a harm reduced product mirrors the perceptions of vapers reported in a new research paper by Trish Fraser of Global Public Health and Professor Glover and Dr Penelope Truman from Massey University’s College of Health.

Professor Glover says the study found the ban on nicotine for vaping, calls by some public health academics to further restrict access to vaping products and where people could vape, compelled vapers to form self-help groups. “Vapers set up online forums where they could support people wanting to switch from smoking to vaping. Individuals and the newly formed groups organised vape-meets to provide a supportive place where smokers could learn about vaping.

“When they heard that peoples’ GPs and the government-funded stop smoking services were refusing to support people in their choice to vape, the vaping community stepped in to fill the gap. They began providing a kind of alternative cessation support to smokers. One on one they were helping family, friends, work mates and even strangers on the street, with advice on how to switch to vaping and where to buy a device and nicotine e-liquid. One group even set up mentors throughout the country to provide support to new vapers in their area,” Professor Glover says.

“There was quite a bit of anger about the way vapers had been treated and that inaccurate claims that vaping was dangerous was leading to bans on vaping. The vapers said they had to quickly learn how to lobby local Councils and MPs. When Nicky Wagner’s Smoke-free Environments [Regulation of Electronic Cigarettes] Amendment Bill is considered, it will be important that the proposed restrictions that the bill will introduce do not, as Judge Butler warned, go against the intent of the Act – that is, to reduce the harm of tobacco smoking,” Professor Glover says.

The researchers add that if the health sector does not change to supporting smokers to vape instead of smoking, then the government should switch to funding vaper-to-smoker peer-led interactions in community contexts where these interactions are naturally occurring.

In the study, 29 vapers were interviewed to learn about the barriers preventing people who smoked from switching to less harmful electronic cigarettes. The study, published in HarmReductionJournal last week, was conducted in 2016 before the National-led Government announced their intention to introduce regulations to control local sales of nicotine e-liquids.

Government and public health responses to e-cigarettes in New Zealand: Vapers’ perspectives was published in the Harm Reduction Journal on April 5 2018.

Massey School of Management senior lecturer Dr Ralph Bathurst.

Take action and make adjustments as information comes to hand

This is a fairly typical leadership problem: what is the best course of action, when the chances of success are not guaranteed?

Karl Weick is one of my favourite organisational theorists. His landmark book Sensemaking in Organizations explores how decisions get made and then how people give meaning to those decisions. When faced with a complex problem, a leader needs to make a decision and act on it. The leader may hesitantly ask, “How do I know it’s the right decision?” Weick would reply, “You don’t!” And then he would add, “The fact that you made a decision and acted makes the decision right…for now.” Of course, although I am paraphrasing him, you can see there are many holes.  But Weick’s comeback would be that any decision is better than no decision.

Decisions can be revisited as more information comes to hand. At least by making the decision and acting, you have set the enterprise in motion. Steering the process can come once you are mobile. 

Weick says, “Leap before you look!” and “Ready, fire, aim!” These are not merely cute aphorisms to get us thinking, they are viable courses of action. It’s a percentage game that sports people know; and it’s an important skill for leaders.

Yes, making a decision to follow a particular path without all the information takes a lot of courage. And it takes even more courage to adjust direction as conditions change and more information becomes available. Reacher would advise that taking action may have a one-in-ten chance of succeeding, but it is better than zero chance.

Learn about the Master of Advanced Leadership Practice

Thousands of students around the country are taking part in National Biomechanics Day next week (April 11), joining a growing global movement to teach school children more about biomechanics.

So what is it? Biomechanics is a multidisciplinary science, which studies human and animal movement and the physical biology of living tissues. It incorporates many STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) disciplines, such as physics, biology, chemistry, and maths. Because every action involves a relationship between forces and motion, biomechanics can be applied to everything we do, including sports and physical activity. But it is not currently taught in secondary schools, and there has been a push from New Zealand biomechanics researchers to share their passion for the relatively unknown science with Kiwi children.

National Biomechanics Day, which began in the United States, is a celebration of biomechanics that will be held simultaneously in university labs across New Zealand, as a way to expose secondary school students to hands-on experiential learning activities centred around biomechanics research. The event has become so popular that it is now being celebrated by thousands of students and teachers around the world, including Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom and for the second time, New Zealand.

Last year, more than 1000 secondary students (along with another 60-80teachers/parents) actively participated in biomechanics-based demonstrations across New Zealand. Almost 50 per cent of the students involved were female and almost 40 per cent of all students were from schools with decile rankings below five.

The project is being led by Dr Sarah Shultz of Massey University’s School of Sport, Exercise and Nutrition, and is a collaboration between Auckland University of Technology, University of Auckland, University of Waikato, University of Canterbury, Lincoln University, and NMIT. It is part of the government’s A Nation of Curious Minds – He Whenua Hihiri/Te Mahara project, funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Unlocking Curious Minds Contestable Fund.

“Our first National Biomechanics Day was amazing, with really high interest from local schools and students,” Dr Shultz says. “We wanted to make sure that we were able to grow and be even bigger and better in 2018. We continue our goal to show how diverse and important biomechanics can be, so in addition to some great demonstrations about sport and exercise, we also have some cool stuff happening with animals, including dogs running on treadmills, and robots, plus applications in fields like medicine and creative arts.”

With 13 sites across the six universities and the one polytechnic involved, Dr Shultz says a new project has been developed with the aim of connecting students across the country in biomechanics research.

The Big Experiment, sponsored by Logemas, Vicon, and IMeasureU, is a hands-on demonstration of live data collection. Dr Shultz says the students will be both the researchers and participants. “Students will have the opportunity to complete a simple jump task while wearing cutting edge wearable technology. The data from the jump task will then be uploaded to a graph that they can see and access online during the event and also once they go home. As the day goes on, more and more data will be added the graph. We hope that the demonstration will not only have students critically thinking about the relationship between age and jump height performance, but also about how they were part of this national project,” she says.

“We know that there might be schools out there who can’t make it to one of the sites, so we have tried to build on our off-site engagement this year. Last year, we were able to have live streaming from different sites, and this year will continue the tradition, with live feeds on Facebook from Massey and Lincoln Universities. But we designed National Biomechanics Day to be hands-on, so we have teamed up with a Silicon Coach to deliver a Biomechanics Scavenger Hunt via social media. Schools will be able to contact us on Facebook to get the list of items. Students will then have to perform a series of biomechanics-related tasks and document their journey using videos and photos. Once the tasks are finished, schools upload their footage back to our Facebook event page to get their completion time. A leader board will keep track of how the schools have done,” Dr Shultz says.

Find out more about National Biomechanics Day here.

You can follow National Biomechanics Day on social media:

Facebook –NZ National Biomechanics Day

Twitter – @NZBiomechDay, @BiomechanicsDay or search #NBD2018

Instagram – @nz.biomech.group

Future young leaders from across the country will gather at Massey University’s Manawatū campus this weekend for a national hui honouring and celebrating their emerging contribution to New Zealand society.

Organised by Massey’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences with the youth-focused social enterprise organisation Inspiring Stories, the April 6-8 hui has identified young people from throughout New Zealand tackling community challenges including local health initiatives, budget advice services and encouraging start-up businesses.

College Pro Vice-Chancellor, Distinguished Professor Paul Spoonley, says the individual qualities of those attending made them ideal participants in the Wellington-based Inspiring Stories programme, which runs on a part-time basis requiring up to five hours commitment per week until November.

“We’re backing these future leaders from rural and provincial New Zealand to build their social entrepreneurship and leadership capability, and their ideas to make a difference.

“Past participants have gone on to significantly improve their capability and confidence, be better prepared for the future, explore meaningful career opportunities and do good things for their communities,” he says.

Hon Peeni Henare (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi), Minister for Youth, Community and Voluntary Sector, for Whānau Ora and Associate Minister for Social Development, will attend and speak at the hui.

Youth passionate about their communities

CEO and founder of Inspiring Stories Guy Ryan says the hui is an opportunity for youth leaders to discuss the opportunities and challenges that the Millennial generation face as they grow up in regional and provincial New Zealand. “They are young people who are passionate about their communities, who are hungry to solve the challenges of the now and play their role in establishing a positive future,” he says.

The young leaders arrive in Palmerston North on Friday, with half of the intake staying on campus over the weekend to gain an insight into student life.

Along with the group’s mentors and coaches, they will take part in workshops on campus, one of which will be led by Professor Richard Shaw, who champions Massey’s revised Bachelor of Arts degree to the public.

With Professor Spoonley, Professor Shaw will then conduct regional workshops during the year with participants as they deal with community issues relevant to their specific area.

Once the programme is completed they say participants will have gained a clearer understanding of factors shaping the socio-economic issues affecting their community, built up a network of mentors to share ideas and advice with and be better prepared to assume leadership roles.

Some brief profiles and contact details for future leaders attending the hui:

• Iraia Nuku – Head Boy Tarawera High School 2017, Kawerau Youth Council 2013-present. Email:ifaifa.nunu@gmail.com
• Eden Edwardson – Studied Business at AUT. Moved back to Opotiki to get back to her roots. Works at Healthy Families East Cape in promoting health-related activities and initiatives in the community. Email: edenedwardson@hotmail.co.nz
• Dominique Vao – A dancer from Palmerston North who is heavily involved in her community. Email: dom_in_eek@hotmail.com
• Joseph Alison – Based In Palmerston North, studied chemical engineering and is active in his community. Email: josephalisonwork@gmail.com
• Shania Braithwaite – Kapiti-based nanny and part of Nga Kakano – a rangatahi group created to make a difference in the community. Email: paretekanawa@gmail.com
• Thomas Sardelich-McNutt – Currently working for West Coast District Health Board as a network administrator, and with several local businesses in Greymouth with Break/fix, Sustaining and Enhancing IT for small to medium businesses. Also involved with West Coast Life Education Trust Board. Email: tsardelich@hotmail.co.nz

For further information contact: 

Genevieve Westcott (Massey University Communications and Marketing): M: 021 971 477

Thomas Maharaj (Inspiring Stories): 021 193 7699

Check out the Inspiring Stories website and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InspiringStoriesTrust/

For social media: #futureleadersNZ 

Fad diets and advice about health dominate the headlines. Our society has never been more saturated by information about healthy living, but our obesity rate continues to rise – in New Zealand today, more than half of the population is overweight or obese.

When it comes to health, it can be difficult to know who to believe. The internet is filled with contradictory diet advice – should we be eating high fat or low fat? Avoiding grains, or consuming plenty? And what about dairy?

Now, a book from one of New Zealand’s leading health researchers, published by Bridget Williams Books as part of the BWB Texts series, provides an authoritative and scientific perspective on the subject of food and health. Professor John D. Potter’s Thought for Food examines the latest evidence on what causes cancer, other chronic diseases and obesity. What is the current understanding of the balance between diet, genes and plain bad luck, and how is the balance shifting? It explains how what we eat can increase or reduce our chances of disease – that what we eat does, in fact, matter.

Professor Potter is an award-winning health researcher. Currently a Professor at Massey University’s Centre for Public Health Research, he is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Canterbury, a Senior Advisor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and a Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology at the University of Washington. He has won numerous international awards for his research on cancer and nutrition, including the US National Cancer Institute Annual Advances in Cancer Prevention Award in 2005 and the 2012 Medal of Honour of the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Thought for Food argues that humans are adapted to a particular diet: not the high-fat, high-meat ‘Palaeolithic’ fad diet, but the diet of early humans when they obtained their food by gathering, hunting and fishing. This diet was dominated by vegetables, fruits, roots, seeds and for coastal dwellers seafood, supplemented by small quantities of lean meat, eggs and insects. Professor Potter says when our diet shifts far from this original diet – particularly into a diet dominated by sugar, saturated fat and alcohol – we increase our risk of disease.

Professor Potter acknowledges that humans couldn’t go back to their original eating habits – and that few would want to. He does however, suggest some simple and practical ways to shift our diet closer towards the original human diet, without sacrificing the convenience and variety to which we have become accustomed. Upping our vegetable intake, experimenting with new ingredients and cuisines, and eating more vegetarian meals are all simple ways to improve our health.

Our current diets aren’t just harming the health of individuals, Professor Potter explains, but they are also devastating the environment. The intensive and industrialised agriculture used to produce much of what we eat causes myriad harms – massive greenhouse gas emissions, rainforest clearing and species extinctions, to name just a few. By changing how we eat, Professor Potter argues, we could not only improve our own health, but that of the planet too.

Thought for Food: Why What We Eat Matters

Published by Bridget Williams Books

RRP $14.99 print, $4.99 ebook

About the Author

John D. Potter is Professor at Massey University’s Centre for Public Health Research, Wellington; Adjunct Professor at University of Canterbury, Christchurch; Senior Advisor, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center; Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology at the University of Washington; and Chief Science Advisor, Ministry of Health. Potter has had an outstanding international research career focusing on nutrition, other environmental and host factors, and genetics in the aetiology and pathobiology of cancer and other chronic diseases. This has broadened to ‘planetary overload’, especially in relation to diet and environmental degradation.

Professor Potter chaired the international panel that produced Food, Nutrition, and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective (1997). Recent visiting appointments have included the Cambridge Research Institute, University of Cambridge and the International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon. He is founding co-chair of the Asia Cohort Consortium, a collaborative cohort study across Asia of 1.1 million people. He has won many international awards and has authored or co-authored more than 690 scientific papers, chapters, and books.

Massey Business School leadership researcher Dr Ralph Bathurst.

Problems are not the problem

We need to find forms of leadership that are open and that facilitate the accurate and timely flow of information. This form of leadership recognises that problems are not the problem. Rather, problems are the source of life and energy for organisations.

The facing of formerly unrecognised ‘wicked’ problems calls for leadership; and it was at this crossroads where Fletcher Building failed. It failed because it relied on outmoded leadership practices.

The old view is that the leader ought to have a grasp on all the issues and, with superior insights, be able to guide the enterprise through its troubled waters. The new view is that no one person, or even the senior team and governance board, has sufficient information at their fingertips to be able to make appropriate decisions.

Norris, with his background in financial management, diagnosed the situation as being overly complex, saying that “often a boom is worse than a bust in many respects because it does put a lot of stress on supply of services, sub-trades, product and the like. And as we know, cost increases come when demand exceeds supply”. 

We need new modes of leadership

But Fletcher Building did not need leadership until it was faced with exactly this building boom.

Rather than seeing the boom time as a leadership challenge to be relished and embraced, they panicked. In the face of multiple subcontracting arrangements to meet building targets, the same management practices that had served them well in the past became a mill stone, stifling their ability to act freely. Starved of information, the company lost its way.

This situation, however, ought not to signal failure. This is the time for leadership, where a man of Norris’s undoubted abilities and experience could bring together teams throughout the company and set them free to explore the problems from all aspects.

Wicked problems call for leadership. But not the strong and decisive kind of the past. It is a leadership that persistently questions everything and everyone throughout the enterprise. It is a kind of leadership that rejects single and simple solutions to complex problems and calls for all members to seek for solutions not yet known, in a spirit of open and curious inquiry. 

Problems at a company should not automatically lead to resignation and retreat. Instead, it should be a time for leaders, who know the company best, to lead creative problem-solving by all stakeholders to ensure the organisation survives and, eventually, begins to grow dynamically once more.

Dr Ralph Bathurst is a senior lecturer with Massey University’s School of Management. He is also the academic coordinator for Massey’s Master of Advanced Leadership programme.