Received: from evaki.its.uow.edu.au (130.130.68.32) by staffmail.uow.edu.au (10.5.102.13) with Microsoft SMTP Server id 8.1.340.0; Sun, 12 Apr 2009 07:59:28 +1000 Received: from febris-nat.its.uow.edu.au ([130.130.68.210] helo=febris.its.uow.edu.au) by evaki.its.uow.edu.au with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1LslEV-0006vv-UM for blane@uow.edu.au; Sun, 12 Apr 2009 07:59:27 +1000 Received: from c3.confirmedcc.com (c3.confirmedcc.com [64.95.77.164]) by febris.its.uow.edu.au (MOS 3.10.3-GA) with ESMTP id RKN03280; Sun, 12 Apr 2009 07:59:23 +1000 (EST) Received: from p2-ws508.ad.prodcc.net (unknown [10.252.0.101]) by c3.confirmedcc.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6F60F34E8672 for ; Sat, 11 Apr 2009 17:40:40 -0400 (EDT) From: Fatherhood Foundation To: Brian Lane Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 07:40:40 +1000 Subject: The Roseto Effect Thread-Topic: The Roseto Effect Thread-Index: Acm68MkiVVESmzZuSa+sjqA1OTj9GQ== Message-ID: <1102540353093.1101938345415.1211.8.1081740FF@scheduler> List-Unsubscribe: http://visitor.constantcontact.com/d.jsp?p=un&v=001jm8CFGIzLJHYg-gJRLc-3d90mBLDU8ykoYhv3lyM3Gpbjh3JAy-Mkg== Reply-To: "info@fathersonline.org" Accept-Language: en-AU, en-US Content-Language: en-US X-MS-Exchange-Organization-AuthAs: Anonymous X-MS-Exchange-Organization-AuthSource: excasht01.ad.uow.edu.au X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: x-junkmail-status: score=10/49, host=febris.its.uow.edu.au x-junkmail-sd-raw: score=unknown, refid=str=0001.0A150205.49E112BF.0084:SCFMA772204,ss=1,fgs=0, ip=64.95.77.164, so=2008-09-22 23:22:13, dmn=5.7.1/2008-09-02, mode=single engine x-junkmail-iwf: false x-return-path-hint: ESC1102540353093_1101938345415_1211@in.confirmedcc.com x-roving-id: 1101938345415.1211 x-lumos-senderid: 1101938345415 x-roving-campaignid: 1102540353093 x-roving-streamid: 0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="_000_11025403530931101938345415121181081740FFscheduler_" MIME-Version: 1.0 --_000_11025403530931101938345415121181081740FFscheduler_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable HTML Web Version Dads4Kids Newsletter [http://origin.ih.constantcontact.com/fs007/1101938345415/img/526.gif?a=3D1= 102540353093] 13th April 2009 Inspiring Fathers Encouraging Families Issue 347 [http://img.constantcontact.com/ui/stock1/3m9q9k8q.jpg] The Roseto Effect Dear Brian, Welcome to the Fatherhood Foundation newsletter and email information servi= ce for Fathers and Families as we present The Roseto Effect. In This Issue Frontline...A Nourishing Community Link...Good Dad Laughter..My present Grandfathers...Nourishment Single Dads...Men's Health Hearing All You Need is Love..Your Old Man Special Feature...The Roseto Effect News & Info..More stats Dad's Prayer..Health Help Next Week War on Fatherhood [http://img.constantcontact.com/ui/images1/s.gif] Join our Mailing List! [http://img.constantcontact.com/ui/images1/ftf_btn_1.gif] Quick Links Dads4Kids Dads in Distress Focus on the Family National Centre for Fathering Oz Family Dads Uni Men of Integrity Lifeline Equal Parenting Party CSA Adverts Help Us Help Others Thought of the Week [http://origin.ih.constantcontact.com/fs007/1101938345415/img/698.jpg?a=3D= 1102540353093] [http://img.constantcontact.com/ui/images1/s.gif] The values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are. Malcolm Gladwell Frontline [http://origin.ih.constantcontact.com/fs007/1101938345415/img/699.jpg?a= =3D1102540353093] Whilst preparing the submission, 'Healthy Men, Healthy Families,Healthy Nat= ion' from the Father= hood Foundation to the recent Senate Committee Inquiry into Men's Health, I= was looking for a way to communicate the health-giving qualities of positi= ve and strong family relationships. In 2003 the Fatherhood Foundation rather prophetically stated, "The quality= of the relationships between mothers and fathers and their children will d= etermine the destiny of Australia.[1]" Convinced that such a statement was true in 2003, we are just as convinced = today. People are nourished by other people. Malcolm Gladwell, in his bestselling = book, 'The Outliers' tells the story of such a nourishing community= , Roseto. Dr Stewart Wolf was a physician. He studied digestion and the stomach and t= aught in the medical school at the University of Oklahoma. He spent his sum= mers on a farm in Pennsylvania, not far from Roseto - although that, of cou= rse, didn't mean much, since Roseto was so much in its own world that it wa= s possible to live in the next town and never know much about it. "One of t= he times when we were up there for the summer - this would have been in the= late nineteen fifties - I was invited to give a talk at the local medical = society," Wolf said years later in an interview. "After the talk was over, = one of the local doctors invited me to have a beer. And while we were havin= g a drink, he said, 'You know, I've been practicing for seventeen years. I = get patients from all over, and I rarely find anyone from Roseto under the = age of sixty-five with heart disease.'" Wolf was taken aback. This was the 1950s, years before the advent of choles= terol lowering drugs and aggressive measures to prevent heart disease. Hear= t attacks were an epidemic in the United States. They were the leading caus= e of death in men under the age of sixty-five. It was impossible to be a do= ctor, common sense said, and not see heart disease. Wolf decided to investigate. He enlisted the support of some of his student= s and colleagues from Oklahoma. They gathered together the death certificat= es from residents of the town, going back as many years as they could. They= analysed physicians' records, They took medical histories and constructed = family genealogies. 'We got busy," Wolf said. "We decided to do a prelimina= ry study. We started in 1961. The mayor said, 'All my sisters are going to = help you.' He had four sisters. He said, 'You can have the town council roo= m' I said, 'Where are you going to have council meetings? He said, 'Well, w= e'll postpone them for a while.' The ladies would bring us lunch. We had li= ttle booths where we could take blood, do EKGs. We were there for four week= s. Then I talked with the authorities. They gave us the school for the summ= er. We invited the entire population of Roseto to be tested." The results were astonishing. In Roseto, virtually no one under fifty-five = had died of a heart attack or showed any signs of heart disease. For men ov= er sixty-five, the death rate from heart disease in Roseto was roughly half= that of the United States as a whole. The death rate from all causes in Ro= seto, in fact, was 30 to 35 percent lower than expected. Wolf brought in a friend of his, a sociologist from Oklahoma named John Bru= hn, to help him. "I hired medical students and sociology grad students as i= nterviewers, and in Roseto we went house to house and talked to every perso= n aged twenty-one and over," Bruhn remembers. This happened more than fifty= years ago, but Bruhn still had a sense of amazement in his voice as he des= cribed what they found. "There was no suicide, no alcoholism, no drug addic= tion, and very little crime. They didn't have anyone on welfare. Then we lo= oked at peptic ulcers. They didn't have any of those either. These people w= ere dying of old age. That's it." [http://origin.ih.constantcontact.com/fs007/1101938345415/img/700.jpg?a=3D1= 102540353093]Wolf's profession had a name for a place like Roseto - a place= that lay outside everyday experience, where the normal rules did not apply= . Roseto was an outlier. Wolf's first thought was that the Rosetans must have held on to some dietar= y practices from the Old World that left them healthier than other American= s. But he quickly realised that wasn't true. . . He then looked at the region where the Rosetans lived. Was it possible that= there was something about living in the foothills of eastern Pennsylvania = that was good for their health? . . . Another dead end. What Wolf began to realise was that the secret of Roseto wasn't diet or exe= rcise or genes or location. It had to be Roseto itself. As Bruhn and Wolf w= alked around the town, they figured out why. They looked at how the Rosetan= s visited one another, stopping to chat in Italian on the street, say, or c= ooking for one another in their backyards. They learned about the extended = family clans that underlay the town's social structure. They saw how many h= omes had three generations living under one roof, and how much respect gran= dparents commanded. They went to mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and saw t= he unifying and calming effect of the church. They counted 22 separate civi= c organisations in a town of just under 2,000 people. They picked up on the= particular egalitarian ethos of the community, which discouraged the wealt= hy from flaunting their success and helped the unsuccessful obscure their f= ailures. . . When Bruhn and Wolf first presented their findings to the medical community= , you can imagine the kind of scepticism they faced. They went to conferenc= es where their peers were presenting long rows of data arrayed in complex c= harts and referring to this kind of gene or that kind of physiological proc= ess, and they themselves were talking instead about the mysterious and magi= cal benefits of people stopping to talk to one another on the street and of= having three generations under one roof. Living a long life, the conventio= nal wisdom at the time said, depended to a great extent on who we were - th= at is, our genes. It depended on the decisions we made - on what we chose t= o eat, and how much we chose to exercise, and how effectively we were treat= ed by the medical system. No one was used to thinking about health in terms= of community. Wolf and Bruhn had to convince the medical establishment to think about hea= lth and heart attacks in an entirely new way: they had to get them to reali= se that they wouldn't be able to understand why someone was healthy if all = they did was think about an individual's personal choices or actions in iso= lation. They had to look beyond the individual. They had to understand the = culture he or she was part of, and who their friends and families were, and= what town their families came from. They had to appreciate the idea that t= he values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with= have a profound effect on who we are. Lovework 'Love, Love, Love. All you need is love.' This could well be Roseto's theme= song. Make the Roseto Effect part of your family mission and cut your medical bil= ls in half. Read the Special Feature to get the full story. It is a sad read, but it re= inforces the truth of the statement, "Life is not defined by what you have,= even when you have a lot."[2] Yours for the Roseto Effect Warwick Marsh PS Thanks for prayers and thoughts last Tuesday when our team presented at = the Senate Select Committee into Men's Health at 9.45 am in Sydney. Ron Bro= okman from Living Waters and Dr Tim O'Neill were a great help. The transcri= pt, when it is published, will be well worth the read. 1 Fathers in Families, (c) 2003 Fatherhood Foundation p.4. [2]Luke 12:15b The Message. ____________________________________________________________________ Warwick Marsh has been married to Alison for 33 years. He is the grandfath= er of two children and father of five children, four boys and one girl, ran= ging in age from 28 years to 16 years. Warwick is a musician, songwriter, = producer and public speaker who likes to think he can still laugh at himsel= f. Link of the Week Good Dad Laughter A wife mentioned to her husband that for her birthday, she would like somet= hing that accelerates from 0 to 100 in four seconds. She was expecting something like this............ [http://origin.ih.constantcontact.com/fs007/1101938345415/img/693.jpg?a=3D1= 102540353093] But her husband presented her with something very different... [http://origin.ih.constantcontact.com/fs007/110193834= 5415/img/694.jpg?a=3D1102540353093] The husband is in a critical but stable condition in ICU Grandfathers [http://origin.ih.constantcontact.com/fs007/1101938345415/img/701.jpg?a=3D1= 102540353093] People are nourished by other people. Dr Stewart Wolf Single Dads [http://origin.ih.constantcontact.com/fs007/1101938345415/img/702.jpg?a=3D= 1102540353093] [http://img.constantcontact.com/ui/images1/s.gif]Yesterday I attended the S= enate Select Committee on Men's Health public hearing. I was early and hear= d the end of the Dads4Kids Fatherhood Foundation - excellent submission pre= sented by Warwick Marsh, Dr Tim O'Neil and Mr Ron Brookman. At the end of t= heir submission they made an impassioned plea to the senators to see to it = ongoing funding for the dads in distress organisation continues. I was very= humbled by what they shared on our behalf. I made my verbal submission but to be honest, I wish I had said more. We ta= lked about divorced and separated men. We talked about how their health suf= fers. We talked about them missing their children and how that feels. We ta= lked about the judicial systems failure at ensuring a relationship continue= s with the father and his children after a divorce or separation. We talked= about the lack of funding for men's organisations in general and we talked= about male suicide. I came back to Coffs Harbour the same day and thought = a lot about the day's proceedings, about what had been said and about what = had not been said. I wanted to tell them more of the debilitating and gutti= ng consequences of not seeing your children, of the spiralling costs of lit= igation, of the depressive feeling of not being able to provide enough for = these poor dads who love their children. On the way home I decided to call into one of our clients, one of our mates= , to see how he was going. I have written about Johnny before. He was the g= uy who spent three years, almost four, in a contact centre visiting his lit= tle girl once a fortnight, sometimes once a month, for a few hours, supervi= sed. The contact centre always claimed he shouldn't be there, he was a good= dad, it was just the way things go. He was the guy who I come across many = times sitting on a bench in the town centre crying, because he had seen his= little girl walking with her mother and he had to hide, because apparently= she was afraid of him, or so the mother claimed. If he saw her walking dow= n the street he would hide behind a tree or walk the other way, catching hi= dden glimpses of the little girl he loved. "I'm her father; I cannot believ= e I have to do this". "I can't believe she is scared of me". "I don't want = to scare her", "I love her", he would often cry. Johnny lives alone on an isolated property with his daughters pets that he = lovingly cares for, awaiting the day of his daughters return. The house is = like a shrine to his daughter, as old photos of various stages of his daugh= ter's life adorn every conceivable space on the walls of his cabin. In conv= ersation it doesn't seem to matter what you talk about, it eventually comes= back to his daughter. How much he misses her, what she was like when last = he saw her, how much he loves her, how he cannot understand the laws of thi= s land that keep a loving dad away from his child, how the system is agains= t him and inevitably he recites over and over that he will never give up fi= ghting for her. [http://origin.ih.constantcontact.com/fs007/1101938345415/img/459.jpg?a=3D1= 102540353093]Unfortunately Johnny has been back to court many times without= success. In fact I was with him the last time when his daughter sent him a= letter hand delivered by her mother's solicitor stating that she no longer= wants any contact with him, that he scares her and she just wanted to be l= eft alone. I convinced Johnny to walk away that time and he did, but now he= is attempting contact once again. I couldn't help but think of the good se= nators whom I addressed earlier in the day when I explained that the powers= that be, would like to see all divorced and separated men put into the bas= ket of a 'mental health issue'. I made particular note of the reality that,= just because you become a separated or divorced male doesn't mean you have= a mental health issue. It just means that one party or the other fell out= of love, it happens, it's called life. It may eventually lead to a mental = health condition, but the continual refusal of one party to another of seei= ng their children causes 'separation grief', its not a mental health issue,= it's simply a case of missing your kids. But now sitting here and listenin= g to Johnny I wished I had him next to me when addressing the Senate Select= Committee. Though I am sure they would think he was a sick man. Yes Johnny has become = obsessive in his thoughts. You see the last time he saw his little girl was= 2006! She has grown up now to an extent, she has just turned 12. It's been= a total of 7 years that he has been denied contact. Seven Years. I remembe= r speaking with the contact centre years ago about Johnny, when they told m= e he was too intense when he saw his little girl. I told them wouldn't you = be if you only saw your child for a couple of hours a fortnight or month? W= ouldn't you be storing up all that love and pouring it out in the lousy cou= ple of hours you have with your child? They agreed. My thoughts snap back = into reality when Johnny thrusts half a dozen photos of himself and his lit= tle girl into my hand, "See that", he exclaims, "Does my little girl look s= cared of me?". The photos were all of Johnny with his little girl hugging h= im closely. She was smiling and so was he, something I hadn't seen on his f= ace for as long as I've known him. They were old and tattered and as I hand= ed them back to him agreeing, he carefully put them back in his wallet, no = doubt awaiting the next time he needed to remind himself that once his daug= hter did love him. "Johnny, many fathers would of given up by now. They would of just walked a= way faced with what you have. What keeps you going?" I asked. "I love her o= f course", he shouted back at me. I just want her to know that". "I underst= and," I said, "and I am sure she will too one day". "Yeah, well I don't wan= t to wait until she is 20 to find out, I want my little girl back", he star= ted to cry. After talking with him for some time and trying to swing the su= bject around without success, I eventually had to go. As I put my empty cof= fee cup on his table, I realised even the cup had a photo of his little gir= l on it. I stood up and opened the door about to leave and took one more gl= ance at the tattered photos on the walls. Here was once a happy life, tatte= red photos of his little girl, of her riding the horse that roamed freely o= n his property, of her feeding the chickens, of her playing with friends, o= f her cuddling dad. Yes she did look happy then, she didn't look scared the= n. Dad looked happy too. As I was leaving Johnny came up to the car door, thrust his hand in and sho= ok mine, "Thanks Tony, if it wasn't for 'dids' I wouldn't be here", he said= as tears were running down his face. "I mean that mate, you blokes have ke= pt me going". I thanked him and offered him the usual. "Just keep praying m= ate and I will send some up as well, it will work out", I said as I drove o= ut of his driveway. I kept watching him in my rear vision mirror as I drove= up the lonely road wondering to myself if we had a really helped him. Yes = he was alive, and that is something in itself but we failed in not ensuring= a father's contact with his beloved child. The system failed them, both of= them, and they will suffer in some degree for the rest of their lives, bot= h of them. That's really what happens. Driving home I realised once again the importance of this Senate Inquiry on= Men's Health. I wished I had a camera stuck on my shoulder as I visit many= like Johnny, to record and show the good senators the results of divorce o= r separation and legislation that has no teeth when it comes to ensuring a = father and his children continue a meaningful relationship post divorce or = separation. And I realised just how important a job it was for these senato= rs to really take in the issues of men's health in this country. After all,= it has been brushed aside for so many years. Over the years I have known Johnny he has shown nothing but absolute love f= or his little girl and in fact has put his life on hold awaiting her return= . Reality is Johnny may never see his little girl again, the odds are against= it. He will continue fighting, we will continue to keep him alive, he won'= t give up, nor will we, but reality is, it is highly unlikely he will see t= hat little girl again. But I don't have the heart to tell him that........= ...Do you???????? You can read about what has been submitted to the Senate Select Committee o= n Men's Health by clicking on the link below: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/menshealth_ctte/hearings/index.htm Names have been changed to protect the anonymity of our clients. Tony Miller Founder Dads in Distress Inc. Mobile 0422 105855 Business 02 6652 8113 Crisis Line 1300 853437 www.dadsindistress.asn.au [http://img.constantcontact.com/ui/images1/s.gif]All You Need is Love Your Old Man Lisa Belkin The New York Times Sunday Magazine April 5, 2009 If those underlying assumptions were to change, would all that follows from= them change as well? A world in which each man heard his clock tick even a= fraction as urgently as each woman could be a very different world indeed.= All those silver-haired sex symbols, and balding sugar daddies, and averag= e-Joe divorced guys who are on their second families because they can be wh= ile their exes are raising their first set of kids ' what if all of them be= came, in women=B9s eyes, too darned old?[http://origin.ih.constantcontact.c= om/fs007/1101938345415/img/696.jpg?a=3D1102540353093] What if 30-year-old women started looking at 50-year-old men as damaged goo= ds, what with their washed-up sperm, meaning those 50-year-olds might actua= lly have to date (gasp!) women their own age? What if men, as the years pas= sed, began to look with new eyes at Ms Almost Right? Would men of all ages = come to understand (firsthand, not just from the sidelines) the fear that t= he very passage of time will put your not-yet-conceived baby at risk? Read between the lines of a recent study out of Australia and you can see h= ints of a coming shift in the gender conversation. Researchers at the Unive= rsity of Queensland found that children born to older fathers have, on aver= age, lower scores on tests of intelligence than those born to younger dads.= Data they analyzed from more than 33,000 American children showed that the= older the man when a child is conceived, the lower a child's score is like= ly to be on tests of concentration, memory, reasoning and reading skills, a= t least through age 7. It was a small difference - just a few I.Q. points separated a child born t= o a 20-year-old and a child born to a 50-year-old. But it adds weight to a = new consensus-in-the-making: there is no fountain of youth for sperm, no 'get o= ut of aging free' card. The little swimmers, scientists are finding, one st= udy at a time, get older and less dependable along with every other cell in= the male body. And men don't have to be all that old to be 'too old.' French researchers r= eported last year that the chance of a couple=B9s conceiving begins to fall= when the man is older than 35 and falls sharply if he is older than 40. British and Swedish researchers, in turn, have calculated that the risk of = schizophrenia begins to rise for those whose fathers were over 30 when thei= r babies were born. And another Swedish study has found that the risk of bi= polar disorder in children begins to increase when fathers are older than 2= 9 and is highest if they are older than 55. British and American researcher= s found that babies born to men over the age of 40 have significantly great= er risk of autism than do those born to men under 30.(The age of the mother= , in most of these studies, showed little or no correlation.) Lay this latest I.Q. news atop the pile, and you find yourself reaching the= same conclusion as Dr. Dolores Malaspina, a professor of psychiatry at New= York University Medical Center, who has done some of the schizophrenia res= earch: "It turns out the optimal age for being a mother is the same as the = optimal age for being a father." For the full article and photo: http://tinyurl.com/clb83q Special Feature [http://img.constantcontact.com/ui/images1/s.gif] The Roseto Effect [http://origin.ih.constantcont= act.com/fs007/1101938345415/img/695.jpg?a=3D1102540353093] In the slate quarries and blouse factories, the men and women of Roseto lab= ored to be able to send their children to college, which they did at a rate= far above the national average. By World War II, Roseto had a small white-= collar class and was prospering. And of course with that, life began to cha= nge. Wolf and Bruhn's study took place just as Roseto's golden age of community = was drawing to a close. They were able to predict that Rosetans then under = 30 would not long be content with their rigid, traditional lifestyle. By th= e '70s, homes on the outskirts of town were in the suburbanized style that = had become the American norm: large single family houses, swimming pools, f= enced years, country clubs, and churches outside of the community. As people moved and achieved material success, they found those gains at th= e expense of traditional communal values with which they have been raised. = One person said, "I'm sorry we moved; everything is modern here and we have= everything I need here, except people." The principal of the elementary school said that children's lives changed. = They went from days filled with activities to lives of watching from the si= delines. She found she had to teach children how to play jacks and marbles.= The strongest evidence that change had come to Roseto was in 1985 when the= town's coronet band, founded in 1890, demanded for the first time to be pa= id for playing at the church's big festival. As Wolf and his colleagues continued to monitor the health of the community= , they noted that social change in the village was accompanied by increasin= g health problems. In 1971, the first heart attack death of a person less t= han 45 occurred in Roseto. Nationally, the Americans' vulnerability to heart attack began to decline b= ecause of the widespread adoption of exercise programs and healthier diet. = At the same time, the Rosetan's rate rose to the national average. Roseto has lost its statistical uniqueness. Yet, it makes clear to a visito= r that it retains a sense of community--one that would be the envy of almos= t any place else in the nation. For many families, eating remains a ritual = of the communal nature of life here. On Sundays, extra chairs are drawn up = and leaves are added to dinner tables all over town for a ceremony that sat= isfies both physical hunger and the hunger to be surrounded by people who s= hare our lives. At Rose's Cafe, the only restaurant remaining in town, proprietor Rose Pava= n calls everyone by name. Anyone with questions about menu items is swept i= nto the kitchen for a sample. Children, most in Catholic school uniforms, f= lock in for an after-school snack--just as parents did back when Rose's was= Mary's Luncheonette. A visitor is bound to come away from Rose's with a full stomach and even fu= ller appreciation how far the rest of us have drifted from the civic-minded= ness that marked much of the nation's history. (My comment: this article is drawn from a series done by The Chicago Tribun= e on America's loss of community. Other articles focused on our changing ur= ban/suburban social fabric. They noted the social changes implied by suburb= an homes where the garage is in front and both parents are employed, often = an hour drive away. This article was especially relevant for medical anthro= pology's emphasis on bio culture, the interrelationship between culture, he= alth and disease.) If older Rosetans are concerned that they have traveled too far down the pa= th of materialistic fulfillment--a path that seems never to end in lasting = contentment--shouldn't other Americans be at least as concerned? We now know that people's reaction's to the same stressful experience vary = widely and those who have a greater sense of control, support and satisfact= ion in their lives are less at risk of illness. Those who get sick most see= m to view the world and their lives as unmanageable while those who stay he= althy have a greater sense of coherence and control through faced with the = same problems. The Rosetans, to put it in Darwinian terms, were a successful adaptation. A wide range of illness reflects the role that ineffective coping and inade= quate support play. The highest rates of tuberculosis have been found among= isolated and marginal people who have little social support, although they= may live in affluent neighborhoods. This article focused on heart disease,= others are indicators of social life as well. These include respiratory di= seases, accidents, and mental illness. Studies in England have shown that c= ivil servants with the highest rate of death from coronary heart disease oc= cur amongst those with little social support. We are indeed nourished by co= ntact with others. News & Info [http://img.constantcontact.com/ui/images1/s.gif] [http://origin.ih.constantcontact.com/fs007/1101938345415/img/697.jpg?a=3D= 1102540353093] More Aborigines enter mixed Marriages MOST Aborigines are partnering with non-Aboriginal people for the first tim= e in history, research has revealed. Greater opportunity for interaction is believed to be the main cause of the= trend, which raises concerns about Aboriginal culture being lost in future= generations. In 2006, 52 per cent of partnered indigenous men and 55 per cent of partner= ed indigenous women were married to or living with non-indigenous partners,= Monash University's People and Place journal said. Desperate Mums turn to Home Births MIDWIVES in New South Wales public hospitals are supervising the labour of = up to three women simultaneously because staff numbers have not kept up wit= h the nation's baby boom. Overcrowding, lack of birth options and the closure of many rural obstetric= services is forcing women into home births. Dad's Prayer [http://origin.ih.constantcontact.com/fs007/1101938345415/img/197.jpg?a=3D1= 102540353093] Dear God Health is body, soul and spirit. Help me understand this fact. Help me live out the reality of good health by concentrating on caring and loving relationships. As you love - let me love, through the power of your love. The greatest social determinant of health is unconditional love. Help Us! [http://img.constantcontact.com/ui/images1/s.gif]The Fatherhood Foundation = is a Harm Prevention Charity. Fatherlessness and inadequate fathering has been proven to be a source of h= arm. The Fatherhood Foundation helps children by promoting excellence in f= athering. Excellent fathers are in word and deed: responsible, involved, pr= otective, loving and committed to the well-being of their children and thei= r children's mother. If you would like to give financially to the Fatherhood Foundation Public F= und and receive tax deductibility: Fatherhood Foundation Public Fund (Name, address and amount details must be emailed for a receipt for tax ded= uctibility) Westpac Branch Wollongong DONATE ONLINE BSB: 032 695 A/C: 25-5558 Or mail cheque and address details to: PO Box 542 UNANDERRA NSW 2526 AUSTRALIA The Fatherhood Foundation Public Fund is a public fund listed on the Regis= ter of Harm Prevention Charities under Subdivision 30_EA of the Income Tax = Assessment Act 1997. You have received the fathersonline.org newsletter because you have subscri= bed, or you have been subscribed by a friend. If you do not wish to receiv= e future emails, please click the UNSUBSCRIBE button below. Forward email [http://img.constantcontact.com/letters/images/safe_unsubscribe_logo.gif] This email was sent to blane@uow.edu.au by info@fathersonline.org. 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HTML Web Version Dads4Kids Newsletter
=09 =09
=09
3D"Dads4Kids
=09
=09 =09 = =09
13th April 2009      I= nspiring Fathers Encouraging Families  = Issue 347
 

 

 
The Roseto Effect

<= /div>
Dear Brian,
Welcome to the Fatherhood Foundation newsletter and email information = service for Fathers and Families as we present The Roseto Effect.
=09
In This Issue
Frontline...A Nourishing Community
Link...Good Dad
Laughter..My present
Grandfathers...Nourishment
Single Dads...Men's Health Hearing
All You Need is Love..Your Old Man
Special Feature...The Roseto Effect
News & Info..More stats
Dad's Prayer..Health Help
Next Week&nb= sp;
 War on Fatherhood
 =09 =09
= Join our Mailing List!
 
Quick Links
Dads4Kids
 
 
 
 

<= a track=3D"on" href=3D"http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=3D1102540353093&s=3D1211&e= =3D001CdCtbhVeF3yQvaQf-GyfVI8K7dQ8563U9DHhbVMbLG8czNDrYPvOwMyho6yb15SGg1ddK= YiTatl6V3b_9EbLWiB6vjOTKulBKSndDhUQ43L5-9RQVvHA0Q=3D=3D" linktype=3D"link" = target=3D"_blank">Lifeline =20
 
Equal Parenting Party  =20
 
Thought of the Week
The values of the world we inhabit
and the people we surround our= selves with
have a profound effect on who we are.
 
Mal= colm Gladwell
 
Frontline
=   3D"Family
Whilst preparing the submission, 'Healthy Men, Healthy Families,Healthy Nation' = from the Fatherhood Foundation to the recent Senate Committee Inquiry into= Men's Health, I was looking for a way to communicate the health-giving qua= lities of positive and strong family relationships.
In 2003 the Father= hood Foundation rather prophetically stated, "The quality of the relationsh= ips between mothers and fathers and their children will determine the desti= ny of Australia.[1]"
Convinced that such a statement was true in 2003= , we are just as convinced today.
People are nourished by other people= . Malcolm Gladwell, in his bestselling book, 'The Outliers' tells the story= of such a nourishing community, Roseto.

Dr Stewart Wolf was a = physician. He studied digestion and the stomach and taught in the medical s= chool at the University of Oklahoma. He spent his summers on a farm in Penn= sylvania, not far from Roseto - although that, of course, didn't mean much,= since Roseto was so much in its own world = that it was possible to live in the next town and never know much about it.= "One of the times when we were up there for the summer - this would have b= een in the late nineteen fifties - I was invited to give a talk at the loca= l medical society," Wolf said years later in an interview. "After the talk = was over, one of the local doctors invited me to have a beer. And while we = were having a drink, he said, 'You know, I've been practicing for seventeen= years. I get patients from all over, and I rarely find anyone from Roseto = under the age of sixty-five with heart disease.'"
 
Wolf was= taken aback. This was the 1950s, years before the advent of cholesterol lo= wering drugs and aggressive measures to prevent heart disease. Heart attack= s were an epidemic in the United States. They were the leading cause of dea= th in men under the age of sixty-five. It was impossible to be a doctor, co= mmon sense said, and not see heart disease.
 
Wolf decided t= o investigate. He enlisted the support of some of his students and colleagu= es from Oklahoma. They gathered together the death certificates from reside= nts of the town, going back as many years as they could. They analysed phys= icians' records, They took medical histories and constructed family genealo= gies. 'We got busy," Wolf said. "We decided to do a preliminary study. We s= tarted in 1961. The mayor said, 'All my sisters are going to help you.' He = had four sisters. He said, 'You can have the town council room' I said, 'Wh= ere are you going to have council meetings? He said, 'Well, we'll postpone = them for a while.' The ladies would bring us lunch. We had little booths wh= ere we could take blood, do EKGs. We were there for four weeks. Then I talk= ed with the authorities. They gave us the school for the summer. We invited= the entire population of Roseto to be tested."
 
The result= s were astonishing. In Roseto, virtually no= one under fifty-five had died of a heart attack or showed any signs of hea= rt disease. For men over sixty-five, the death rate from heart disease in R= oseto was roughly half that of the United States as a whole. The death rate= from all causes in Roseto, in fact, was 30 to 35 percent lower than expect= ed.
 
Wolf brought in a friend of his, a sociologist from Ok= lahoma named John Bruhn, to help him. "I hired medical students and sociolo= gy grad students as interviewers, and in Roseto we went house to house and = talked to every person aged twenty-one and over," Bruhn remembers. This hap= pened more than fifty years ago, but Bruhn still had a sense of amazement i= n his voice as he described what they found. "There was no suicide, no alco= holism, no drug addiction, and very little crime. They didn't have anyone o= n welfare. Then we looked at peptic ulcers. They didn't have any of those e= ither. These people were dying of old age. That's it."
 
Wolf's profession had a n= ame for a place like Roseto - a place that lay outside everyday experience,= where the normal rules did not apply. Roseto was an outlier.
 Wolf's first thought was that the Rosetans must have held on to some di= etary practices from the Old World that left them healthier than other Amer= icans. But he quickly realised that wasn't true. . .
 
He th= en looked at the region where the Rosetans lived. Was it possible that ther= e was something about living in the foothills of eastern Pennsylvania that = was good for their health? . . . Another dead end.
 
What Wo= lf began to realise was that the secret of Roseto wasn't diet or exercise o= r genes or location. It had to be Roseto itself. As Bruhn and Wolf walked a= round the town, they figured out why. They looked at how the Rosetans visit= ed one another, stopping to chat in Italian on the street, say, or cooking = for one another in their backyards. They learned about the extended family = clans that underlay the town's social structure. They saw how many homes ha= d three generations living under one roof, and how much respect grandparent= s commanded. They went to mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and saw the unif= ying and calming effect of the church. They counted 22 separate civic organ= isations in a town of just under 2,000 people. They picked up on the partic= ular egalitarian ethos of the community, which discouraged the wealthy from= flaunting their success and helped the unsuccessful obscure their failures= . . .
 
When Bruhn and Wolf first presented their findings t= o the medical community, you can imagine the kind of scepticism they faced.= They went to conferences where their peers were presenting long rows of da= ta arrayed in complex charts and referring to this kind of gene or that kin= d of physiological process, and they themselves were talking instead about = the mysterious and magical benefits of people stopping to talk to one anoth= er on the street and of having three generations under one roof. Living a l= ong life, the conventional wisdom at the time said, depended to a great ext= ent on who we were - that is, our genes. It depended on the decisions we ma= de - on what we chose to eat, and how much we chose to exercise, and how ef= fectively we were treated by the medical system. No one was used to thinkin= g about health in terms of community.
 
Wolf and Bruhn had t= o convince the medical establishment to think about health and heart attack= s in an entirely new way: they had to get them to realise that they wouldn'= t be able to understand why someone was healthy if all they did was think a= bout an individual's personal choices or actions in isolation. They had to = look beyond the individual. They had to understand the culture he or she wa= s part of, and who their friends and families were, and what town their fam= ilies came from. They had to appreciate the idea that the values of the wor= ld we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound eff= ect on who we are.
 
Lovework
 
'Love, Love, Love. All you need is love.' This could well be= Roseto's theme song.
 
Make the Roseto Effect part of your = family mission and cut your medical bills in half.
 
Read t= he Special Feature to get the full story. I= t is a sad read, but it reinforces the truth of the statement, "Life is not= defined by what you have, even when you have a lot."[2]
 
Y= ours for the Roseto Effect
Warwick Marsh
 
PS Thanks fo= r prayers and thoughts last Tuesday when our team presented at the Senate S= elect Committee into Men's Health at 9.45 am in Sydney. Ron Brookman from L= iving Waters and Dr Tim O'Neill were a great help. The transcript, when it = is published, will be well worth the read.

1 Fathers in Families, (c) 2003 Fatherhood Foundation p.4.
[2]Luke 12:15b The Message.

 _____________= _______________________________________________________

Warwick = Marsh  has been married to Alison for 33 years. He is t= he grandfather of two children and father of five children, four boys and o= ne girl, ranging in age from 28 years to 16 years.  Warwick is a = musician, songwriter, producer and public speaker who likes to think he can= still laugh at himself.
Link of the Week
Good Dad <= /div>
 
Laughter
= =
 
A wife mentioned to her husband that for her birthday, she would like = something that accelerates from 0 to 100 in four seconds.
She was exp= ecting something like this............ 
 
3D"Honda
 But her husband presented her with something very different...&n= bsp;

 
           &nbs= p;          3D"Scales"
The husband is in a critica= l but stable condition in ICU
Grandfathers
3D"Nourished
People are nourished by other people.
&n= bsp;
Dr Stewart Wolf
 

 
Single Dads
 3D"Senate"
Yesterday I attended the Senate Select Committee on= Men's Health public hearing. I was early and heard the end of the Dads4Kid= s Fatherhood Foundation - excellent submission presented by Warwick Marsh, = Dr Tim O'Neil and Mr Ron Brookman. At the end of their submission they made= an impassioned plea to the senators to see to it ongoing funding for the d= ads in distress organisation continues. I was very humbled by what they sha= red on our behalf.
 
I made my verbal submission but to be h= onest, I wish I had said more. We talked about divorced and separated men. = We talked about how their health suffers. We talked about them missing thei= r children and how that feels. We talked about the judicial systems failure= at ensuring a relationship continues with the father and his children afte= r a divorce or separation. We talked about the lack of funding for men's or= ganisations in general and we talked about male suicide. I came back to Cof= fs Harbour the same day and thought a lot about the day's proceedings, abou= t what had been said and about what had not been said. I wanted to tell the= m more of the debilitating and gutting consequences of not seeing your chil= dren, of the spiralling costs of litigation, of the depressive feeling of n= ot being able to provide enough for these poor dads who love their children= .
 
On the way home I decided to call into one of our client= s, one of our mates, to see how he was going. I have written about Johnny b= efore. He was the guy who spent three years, almost four, in a contact cent= re visiting his little girl once a fortnight, sometimes once a month, for a= few hours, supervised. The contact centre always claimed he shouldn't be t= here, he was a good dad, it was just the way things go. He was the guy who = I come across many times sitting on a bench in the town centre crying, beca= use he had seen his little girl walking with her mother and he had to hide,= because apparently she was afraid of him, or so the mother claimed. If he = saw her walking down the street he would hide behind a tree or walk the oth= er way, catching hidden glimpses of the little girl he loved. "I'm her fath= er; I cannot believe I have to do this". "I can't believe she is scared of = me". "I don't want to scare her", "I love her", he would often cry.
&n= bsp;
Johnny lives alone on an isolated property with his daughters pet= s that he lovingly cares for, awaiting the day of his daughters return. The= house is like a shrine to his daughter, as old photos of various stages of= his daughter's life adorn every conceivable space on the walls of his cabi= n. In conversation it doesn't seem to matter what you talk about, it eventu= ally comes back to his daughter. How much he misses her, what she was like = when last he saw her, how much he loves her, how he cannot understand the l= aws of this land that keep a loving dad away from his child, how the system= is against him and inevitably he recites over and over that he will never = give up fighting for her.
 
3D"StressedUnfortunately Johnny has been back to court many times = without success. In fact I was with him the last time when his daughter sen= t him a letter hand delivered by her mother's solicitor stating that she no= longer wants any contact with him, that he scares her and she just wanted = to be left alone. I convinced Johnny to walk away that time and he did, but= now he is attempting contact once again. I couldn't help but think of the = good senators whom I addressed earlier in the day when I explained that the= powers that be, would like to see all divorced and separated men put into = the basket of a 'mental health issue'. I made particular note of the realit= y that, just because you become a separated or divorced male doesn't mean y= ou have a mental health issue.  It just means that one party or the ot= her fell out of love, it happens, it's called life. It may eventually lead = to a mental health condition, but the continual refusal of one party to ano= ther of seeing their children causes 'separation grief', its not a mental h= ealth issue, it's simply a case of missing your kids. But now sitting here = and listening to Johnny I wished I had him next to me when addressing the S= enate Select Committee.
 
Though I am sure they would think = he was a sick man. Yes Johnny has become obsessive in his thoughts. You see= the last time he saw his little girl was 2006! She has grown up now to an = extent, she has just turned 12. It's been a total of 7 years that he h= as been denied contact. Seven Years. I remember speaking with the contact c= entre years ago about Johnny, when they told me he was too intense when he = saw his little girl. I told them wouldn't you be if you only saw your child= for a couple of hours a fortnight or month? Wouldn't you be storing up all= that love and pouring it out in the lousy couple of hours you have with yo= ur child?  They agreed. My thoughts snap back into reality when Johnny= thrusts half a dozen photos of himself and his little girl into my hand, "= See that", he exclaims, "Does my little girl look scared of me?". The photo= s were all of Johnny with his little girl hugging him closely. She was smil= ing and so was he, something I hadn't seen on his face for as long as I've = known him. They were old and tattered and as I handed them back to him agre= eing, he carefully put them back in his wallet, no doubt awaiting the next = time he needed to remind himself that once his daughter did love him.
=  
"Johnny, many fathers would of given up by now. They would of j= ust walked away faced with what you have. What keeps you going?" I asked. "= I love her of course", he shouted back at me. I just want her to know that"= . "I understand," I said, "and I am sure she will too one day". "Yeah, well= I don't want to wait until she is 20 to find out, I want my little girl ba= ck", he started to cry. After talking with him for some time and trying to = swing the subject around without success, I eventually had to go. As I put = my empty coffee cup on his table, I realised even the cup had a photo of hi= s little girl on it. I stood up and opened the door about to leave and took= one more glance at the tattered photos on the walls. Here was once a happy= life, tattered photos of his little girl, of her riding the horse that roa= med freely on his property, of her feeding the chickens, of her playing wit= h friends, of her cuddling dad. Yes she did look happy then, she didn't loo= k scared then. Dad looked happy too.
 
As I was leaving John= ny came up to the car door, thrust his hand in and shook mine, "Thanks Tony= , if it wasn't for 'dids' I wouldn't be here", he said as tears were runnin= g down his face. "I mean that mate, you blokes have kept me going". I thank= ed him and offered him the usual. "Just keep praying mate and I will send s= ome up as well, it will work out", I said as I drove out of his driveway. I= kept watching him in my rear vision mirror as I drove up the lonely road w= ondering to myself if we had a really helped him. Yes he was alive, and tha= t is something in itself but we failed in not ensuring a father's contact w= ith his beloved child. The system failed them, both of them, and they will = suffer in some degree for the rest of their lives, both of them. That'= s really what happens.
 
Driving home I realised once again = the importance of this Senate Inquiry on Men's Health. I wished I had a cam= era stuck on my shoulder as I visit many like Johnny, to record and show th= e good senators the results of divorce or separation and legislation t= hat has no teeth when it comes to ensuring a father and his children contin= ue a meaningful relationship post divorce or separation. And I realised jus= t how important a job it was for these senators to really take in the issue= s of men's health in this country. After all, it has been brushed aside for= so many years.
 
Over the years I have known Johnny he has = shown nothing but absolute love for his little girl and in fact has put his= life on hold awaiting her return.
 
Reality is Johnny may n= ever see his little girl again, the odds are against it. He will continue f= ighting, we will continue to keep him alive, he won't give up, nor wil= l we, but reality is, it is highly unlikely he will see that little gi= rl again.  But I don't have the heart to tell him that...........Do yo= u???????? 
 
You can read about what has been submitte= d to the Senate Select Committee on Men's Health by clicking on the link be= low:
 
http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/menshealth_ctte/hearings/index.htm=
 
 
Names have been changed to protect the a= nonymity of our clients.
 
Tony Miller
Founder
Dad= s in Distress Inc.
Mobile 0422 105855
Business 02 6652 8113
= Crisis Line 1300 853437
www.dadsindistress.asn.au =
= 3D"AlluNeed"<= /a>All You Need is Love
 
Your Old Man
Lisa Belki= n
The New York Times Sunday Magazine April 5, 2009
 
&= nbsp;
If those underlying assumptions were to change, would all that f= ollows from them change as well? A world in which each man heard his clock = tick even a fraction as urgently as each woman could be a very different wo= rld indeed. All those silver-haired sex symbols, and balding sugar daddies,= and average-Joe divorced guys who are on their second families because the= y can be while their exes are raising their first set of kids ' what if all= of them became, in women=B9s eyes, too darned old?3D"Marrying
 
What if 30-year-old wo= men started looking at 50-year-old men as damaged goods, what with their wa= shed-up sperm, meaning those 50-year-olds might actually have to date (gasp= !) women their own age? What if men, as the years passed, began to look wit= h new eyes at Ms Almost Right? Would men of all ages come to understand (fi= rsthand, not just from the sidelines) the fear that the very passage of tim= e will put your not-yet-conceived baby at risk?
 
Read betwe= en the lines of a recent study out of Australia and you can see hints of a = coming shift in the gender conversation. Researchers at the University of Q= ueensland found that children born to older fathers have, on average, lower= scores on tests of intelligence than those born to younger dads. Data they= analyzed from more than 33,000 American children showed that the older the= man when a child is conceived, the lower a child's score is likely to be o= n tests of concentration, memory, reasoning and reading skills, at least th= rough age 7.
 
It was a small difference - just a few I.Q. p= oints separated a child born to a 20-year-old and a child born to a 50-year= -old. But it adds weight to a new
consensus-in-the-making: there is no= fountain of youth for sperm, no 'get out of aging free' card. The little s= wimmers, scientists are finding, one study at a time, get older and less de= pendable along with every other cell in the male body.
 
And= men don't have to be all that old to be 'too old.' French researchers repo= rted last year that the chance of a couple=B9s conceiving begins to fall wh= en the man is older than 35 and falls sharply if he is older than 40.
=  
British and Swedish researchers, in turn, have calculated that = the risk of schizophrenia begins to rise for those whose fathers were over = 30 when their babies were born. And another Swedish study has found that th= e risk of bipolar disorder in children begins to increase when fathers are = older than 29 and is highest if they are older than 55. British and America= n researchers found that babies born to men over the age of 40 have signifi= cantly greater risk of autism than do those born to men under 30.(The age o= f the mother, in most of these studies, showed little or no correlation.) 
Lay this latest I.Q. news atop the pile, and you find yours= elf reaching the same conclusion as Dr. Dolores Malaspina, a professor of p= sychiatry at New York University Medical Center, who has done some of the s= chizophrenia research: "It turns out the optimal age for being a mother is = the same as the optimal age for being a father."
 
For the f= ull article and photo:
http://tinyurl.com/clb83q 
 =
=09 =

Special Feature

 3D= 
 The Roseto Effect <= img name=3D"ACCOUNT.IMAGE.695" border=3D"0" contenteditable=3D"false" alt= =3D"Roseto" src=3D"http://origin.ih.constantcontact.com/fs007/1101938345415= /img/695.jpg?a=3D1102540353093" align=3D"right" />
&nb= sp;
In the slate quarries and blouse factories, the men and women of R= oseto labored to be able to send their children to college, which they did = at a rate far above the national average. By World War II, Roseto had a sma= ll white-collar class and was prospering. And of course with that, life beg= an to change.
 
Wolf and Bruhn's study took place just as Ro= seto's golden age of community was drawing to a close. They were able to pr= edict that Rosetans then under 30 would not long be content with their rigi= d, traditional lifestyle. By the '70s, homes on the outskirts of town were = in the suburbanized style that had become the American norm: large single f= amily houses, swimming pools, fenced years, country clubs, and churches out= side of the community.
 
As people moved and achieved materi= al success, they found those gains at the expense of traditional communal v= alues with which they have been raised. One person said, "I'm sorry we move= d; everything is modern here and we have everything I need here, except peo= ple."
 
The principal of the elementary school said that chi= ldren's lives changed. They went from days filled with activities to lives = of watching from the sidelines. She found she had to teach children how to = play jacks and marbles. The strongest evidence that change had come to Rose= to was in 1985 when the town's coronet band, founded in 1890, demanded for = the first time to be paid for playing at the church's big festival.
&n= bsp;
As Wolf and his colleagues continued to monitor the health of the= community, they noted that social change in the village was accompanied by= increasing health problems. In 1971, the first heart attack death of a per= son less than 45 occurred in Roseto.
 
Nationally, the Ameri= cans' vulnerability to heart attack began to decline because of the widespr= ead adoption of exercise programs and healthier diet. At the same time, the= Rosetan's rate rose to the national average.
 
Roseto has l= ost its statistical uniqueness. Yet, it makes clear to a visitor that it re= tains a sense of community--one that would be the envy of almost any place = else in the nation. For many families, eating remains a ritual of the commu= nal nature of life here. On Sundays, extra chairs are drawn up and leaves a= re added to dinner tables all over town for a ceremony that satisfies both = physical hunger and the hunger to be surrounded by people who share our liv= es.
 
At Rose's Cafe, the only restaurant remaining in town,= proprietor Rose Pavan calls everyone by name. Anyone with questions about = menu items is swept into the kitchen for a sample. Children, most in Cathol= ic school uniforms, flock in for an after-school snack--just as parents did= back when Rose's was Mary's Luncheonette.
 
A visitor is bo= und to come away from Rose's with a full stomach and even fuller appreciati= on how far the rest of us have drifted from the civic-mindedness that marke= d much of the nation's history.
 
(My comment: this article = is drawn from a series done by The Chicago Tribune on America's loss of com= munity. Other articles focused on our changing urban/suburban social fabric= . They noted the social changes implied by suburban homes where the garage = is in front and both parents are employed, often an hour drive away. This a= rticle was especially relevant for medical anthropology's emphasis on bio c= ulture, the interrelationship between culture, health and disease.)
&n= bsp;
If older Rosetans are concerned that they have traveled too far d= own the path of materialistic fulfillment--a path that seems never to end i= n lasting contentment--shouldn't other Americans be at least as concerned?<= br /> 
We now know that people's reaction's to the same stressful= experience vary widely and those who have a greater sense of control, supp= ort and satisfaction in their lives are less at risk of illness. Those who = get sick most seem to view the world and their lives as unmanageable while = those who stay healthy have a greater sense of coherence and control throug= h faced with the same problems.
 
The Rosetans, to put it in= Darwinian terms, were a successful adaptation.
 
A wide ran= ge of illness reflects the role that ineffective coping and inadequate supp= ort play. The highest rates of tuberculosis have been found among isolated = and marginal people who have little social support, although they may live = in affluent neighborhoods. This article focused on heart disease, others ar= e indicators of social life as well. These include respiratory diseases, ac= cidents, and mental illness. Studies in England have shown that civil serva= nts with the highest rate of death from coronary heart disease occur amongs= t those with little social support. We are indeed nourished by contact with= others.
 
 

News & Info
=
  =20
3D"NewsInfo" 
 3D"Couple 
 
MOST Aborigines are partnering with non-Aboriginal peop= le for the first time in history, research has revealed.
Greater oppor= tunity for interaction is believed to be the main cause of the trend, which= raises concerns about Aboriginal culture being lost in future generations.=
In 2006, 52 per cent of partnered indigenous men and 55 per cent of = partnered indigenous women were married to or living with non-indigenous pa= rtners, Monash University's People and Place journal said. 

 
Desperate Mums turn to Home Births  =
 
MIDWIVES in New South Wales public hospitals are supervising the labou= r of up to three women simultaneously because staff numbers have not kept u= p with the nation's baby boom.
Overcrowding, lack of birth options and the closure of many rural obst= etric services is forcing women into home births.


<= br />

Dad's Prayer

3D"Man
Dear God
 
Health is body, soul and spirit.
Help m= e understand this fact.
Help me live out the reality of good healthby concentrating on caring and loving relationships.
As you love - = let me love, through the power of your love.
The greatest social deter= minant of health is unconditional love.
 

 
=09
=09
Help Us!

3D"HelpUs"= The Fatherhood Foundation is a Harm Prevention Charity.
Fatherles= sness and inadequate fathering has been proven to be a source of harm.= The Fatherhood Foundation helps children by promoting excellence  in = fathering. Excellent fathers are in word and deed: responsible, involved, p= rotective, loving and committed to the well-being of their children and the= ir children's mother.

 

If you would like to give financially t= o the Fatherhood Foundation Public Fund and receive tax deductibility:

 

Fatherhood Found= ation Public Fund
(Name, address and amount details must be = emailed for a receipt for tax deductibility)

 Westpac Branch Wollongong      &nb= sp;            =   DONATE ONLINE

BSB: 032 695
A/C: 25-5558
 

Or mail cheque and address details to:<= br />PO Box 542
UNANDERRA  NSW&nbs= p; 2526
AUSTRALIA

 

The Fatherhood Foundation Public Fund&n= bsp; is a public fund listed on the Register of Harm Prevention Charities u= nder Subdivision 30_EA of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997.=

 

You have received the fatherson= line.org newsletter because you have subscribed, or you have been = subscribed by a friend.  If you do not wish to receive future emails, = please click the UNSUBSCRIBE button below.

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This email was sent to blane@uow.edu.au by in= fo@fathersonline.org.
Fatherhood Foundati= on | P.O. Box 542 | Unanderra | NSW | 2526 | Australia
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