Health and Wellbeing

Health and Wellbeing

By Kathryn Anderson

Fast for the hungry

Remember those weekends as a teenager, surviving on nothing but barley sugar and water?

Cast your mind back to your teen years and the words “40 Hour Famine” might conjure up fun weekends raising money for World Vision and this year marks its 40th anniversary.

To raise awareness of global hunger, World Vision is asking us to go without something for 40 hours.

Instead of just food, participants these days can choose to go without technology, food, talking or even furniture – anything that means something to you.

World Vision will use the funds to support its projects in Bangladesh, Cambodia, East Timor, Laos, Malawi, Nepal, Swaziland and Uganda.

The brilliant thing about World Vision is it gets to the grassroots of hunger issues by providing education where it will benefit communities for the long term by directing funding into nutrition training for parents, child health services and better agricultural practices.

So if you want to help with this world-wide problem then crack open the barley sugar or put your phone in flight-mode and sign up at www.40hourfamine.com.au/

Get running for the marathon

You already know how much we love running at Viva and this year is no different with excitement starting to ripple through the clinic with the upcoming Melbourne Marathon.

August is when we start to see the marathon niggles trickle in the door with most entrants getting to the 20km mark in their training. 

But even if you’re not starting to hurt, follow these simple tips to not only keep the niggles at bay, but improve your running efficiency and cut valuable seconds off your time.

Get a foam roller; they are a runner’s best friend and can be used on your ITB, quads, calves and your back.

Strengthen your gluts – the single most important muscle group to propel you the 42 (or 21) km to the finish line.

Do hill training to help you with glut strength and improve your muscle power and fast twitch response, giving you the extra speed you need to when the rest of you starts to hurt.

Good luck for all those who are training and we look forward to seeing you cross the line on the day!

Striving for your best bones

For those of you who follow our column, you’ll remember an article we ran about bone health and why we should all invest in our future bone-health from an early age. 

It’s time then to take action and sign up to Health Bones Action Week from August 3-9. Did you know that nine out of 10 women aged 19-49 years don’t consume enough dairy-rich foods to maintain healthy bones?

Get involved and take part in the challenge to improve your bone health by having four “serves” daily of dairy, Vitamin D and weight-bearing exercise.

By signing up to the ”Fit, Fab and 50” Challenge and pledging your commitment you could win one of 70 $100 supermarket vouchers or a Michael Kors handbag.

Dairy Australia encourages everyone, regardless of age and gender to take part as we’ll all remember that the bones we build in our 20s, 30s and 40s are the bones we have with us for life.

Sign up at www.healthybones.com.au or jump online to read facts about calcium intake and recipe inspiration or read the blog at www.vivaphysiotherapy.com/bone-health/

Since Labor has been in power …

Since Labor has been in power …

March 20th, 2024 - Evan Mulholland
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