News reports about Victoria Beckham having been advised to put on weight are a welcome sight in a culture where emphasis is on how great people look when they are pencil lead slim.  The fashion world is obsessed with making garments that use as little fabric as possible therefore creating >  Our magazines flaunt celebrities, such as Ms Beckham, as being stylish and having a great body – what body?  There is no body!  It’s little more than a skeleton covered in skin!  But unfortunately it’s also what is considered by those who judge such things as being beautiful. 

The call for Victoria to gain weight in the time leading up to the much awaited Spice Girl reunion tour on the grounds that her current weight isn’t healthy enough to sustain the stresses she will put on it during the tour is evidence that the >  Whilst being overweight isn’t good for you, looking like your addicted to liposuction isn't either.  What a wonderful message to send out to the youngsters who will once again use the Spice Girls as role models.

Botox and too many bones visible isn’t what’s required to be healthy, that’s the message that’s being sent out here.  Looking good is only part of it, you also have to look healthy and eat enough to create the energy you need to live a normal life.  That means that you eat nutritionally correct and not just pick at bits of lettuce with a hint of extra virgin olive oil.  You need to eat some fats – OK so careful on the saturated fats and definitely no trans fats, but your body does require a little fat.  You need protein.  You need carbs.  You need fresh fruit and veggies.  You also need to enjoy what you eat, just not too much! 

Everything should be in moderation and now that the word is out that Victoria Beckham isn’t currently at a weight that’s healthy enough  for her body to sustain the demands of the tour, this is a great time for other role models to start rethinking their public diet plans, and showing how they can become better ambassadors for healthy living.  I’m sure most of them get a kick out of the photos in the magazines, but I’m also sure they’d get a much longer thrill from knowing they have paved the way for a generation of healthy girls who know how to eat nutritiously as well as look good.

How sad and tragic the death of 6 year old Guy Davies is.  My heart goes out not only to his mother, but also to the driver of the car who may have been expected to be driving careful enough not to hit anyone on the road, but who would also not expect to find a child on the motorway in the first place.  However there are many people who live in close vicinity to main roads, many of them families with small children so it’s a wonder that this isn’t a more common occurrence. 

There ought to be a way of sheltering residential areas from the dangers associated with motorway vehicles, whether it is by financing additional security measures so block off the major roads from the nearby homes so that children aren’t able to just wander out into the road.  The amount of financial resource that this would take is likely to be as great as the amount of time it would take to assess which areas of the busiest motorways need to be isolated from the residential areas first, but as little Guy’s death has proved, it’s something that’s needing to be looked at.

Finally we seem to be progressing with the site. This is what I'm going to change next the insurance cat page

The BBC new website is reporting about 5 boys being convicted of manslaughter and violent disorder, and yet their sentence is only two years of home detention.   I realize that the “boys” are between 12 and 14, but manslaughter is manslaughter, it’s not spraying four letter words on a wall.  What kind of message are we as a society sending out if a life is thought only to be worth 2 years of being kept inside a comfortable home surrounded by people who care for you?  They killed another human, someone who belonged to a family who must now continue their lives without him.  It doesn’t seem right that the people guilty of his death are allowed to spend their punishment period with theirs.

Serious crimes are being increasingly carried out by kids in this age bracket and it’s time that the law was changed so that anyone who is convicted of a crime that takes a life is liable to be punished by more than a slap on the hand.  

On a more positive note. This is what I’m going to change next the problem prone skin pages

There has been talk lately about the possibility that Gordon Brown might be about to call for a general election. Whether it is months away or still a couple of years, one thing is for sure it will be unlike any election we have ever had before.

Many MPs as well as the central political parties have been starting their own video channels on the popular website YouTube. The site is already eating into the market share of more traditional forms of media and young people especially can spend more time each week watching videos on there than watching television.

This presents a tremendous opportunity for politicians. They can now quickly produce a simple video with a clear message and make it available people to see. If this is done well and updated regularly and integrated into every aspect of their campaign it could be an extremely powerful tool and best of all it can cost next to nothing. However, it is very unlike more traditional forms of media in that it is two way. Just as easily as the politicians can post videos saying why their constituents should vote for them. Their constituents can respond by saying why they won't vote for them and what they really think of them.

On the whole politicians have been very slow to embrace what looks like a perfect tool for them, Read the rest of this entry »