Week 6: Remote Teams

Hi and welcome back to my blog journey,

As you may have seen I have missed a week, I had an assignment due therefore all my time and efforts were directed at this. But, we are now back on the blog and this week I will be writing briefly about the remote team that I currently work with.

The remote group I work with has 5 members from the wider Manawatu area, we all have very busy lives outside of study which includes, work, family as well as our many hobbies. Due to this, we are not able to meet face-to-face instead we have utilized technology to combat this issue. We regularly talk via our private Facebook page and messenger and we have set up Google Docs as to be able to all work simultaneously on our project. However, I do feel that making time as a group to meet face-to-face is important, as it will improve the relationship the group has and the trust in each other (Watkins, 2013).

Our group was formed very earlier in our study semester, therefore, we have been able to get to know each other and our strengths and weaknesses very well. This has allowed us to decide as a group on different roles we will take on and what tasks each person will have. Also, we have been able to recognize what all our individual goals were and ensure we were wanting the same outcome, we do not want to simply pass this group assignment but get the best possible mark being an A. Our communication has been very good and each member of the group has been contributing to the decisions.

One of the things our group will need to work further on is setting our individual tasks and tracking our progress as a group, this will allow us to see how each member is going and will allow us to help each other further. More importantly, keeping track of this progress will ensure we are working productively as a team. Google Docs is a good way of tracking this progress, possibly making a weekly agenda or list of tasks for everyone that we can all see will help us. We all understand that life gets busy and having a group decided list of tasks for each week will keep us moving forward efficiently.

I have held a part time job as a coach of my local college football team, I had to work within a small team consisting of an assistant coach, manager, parent representative and the college sports coordinator. One thing I found to be the biggest challenge was getting everyone to communicate effectively, there were individuals who had different objectives and they didn’t voice these. In the end, this broke down the entire system, the lack of communication was the killer blow in what could have been a good environment and eventually our goals were not obtained. So, to see our small remote group begin the way we have is very encouraging. We have been very effective and I believe we will be very successful if we continue to communicate, help each other and remain focused on our end goals.

Watkins, D. M. (2013) Making virtual teams work: Ten basic principles. Retrieved from

https://hbr.org/2013/06/making-virtual-teams-work-ten

Week 4:

Hello and welcome to week 4 of my blog journey.

This week we have been given a free reign on what it is we write about, so I thought I would do a quick piece on why I feel my topic is important, not only to me but to everyone, on an individual level and to wider communities. I find the easiest way I learn and retain is if I can physically see something or picture it well so I will give some key statistics that I hope will shed some light on our health situation in New Zealand and abroad.

Firstly, some statistics released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) showed that in 2014, 1.9 billion adults, aged 18 years or older, were overweight and over 600 million more were obese. While a further 41 million kids under the age of 5 were overweight or obese. That is some terrifying statistics when you take the minute to consider that obesity is preventable.

To paint a picture a little closer to home, a New Zealand Ministry of Health survey from 2015/16 revealed that 1 in 3 adults was obese, that’s 32% of our adult population. Add to this the further 35% of adults who are overweight, the 11% of children who are obese and the 21% of children who are overweight but not yet obese and I think we can all see just how serious the issue is within New Zealand. To put a figure on this issue, a report from the Faculty of Medical and Health Services found that overweight and obesity cost between $722 million and $849 million New Zealand Dollars (NZD) in health care and loss of productivity per year.

Now I think we can all see what an ugly picture this is drawing, but it is our reality. Our country is unhealthy, we are making unhealthy decisions through what I believe is a lack of understanding and education when it comes to what we need to do to ensure the quality of life for ourselves and those around us. I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know how we change our entire food environment to begin to rectify what we have created. But what I do know, and what I truly feel passionate about is the need for change. We need change. It is made plain and clear that our current food environment and our relationships with food are killing us.

Since taking on this topic I have found myself questioning all my diet habits and those of my family, much to their disappointment at times. I really feel that this is an issue that will need to be handled at a community level. By that, I mean starting within your family and then offering insight and help to others. So, I do encourage everyone who reads this to think on the topic and maybe make some decisions regarding our personal relationships with food.

Thanks, Ryan.

Week 3- The Debate

Hello again, 

Welcome to week 3 of my blog journey. Today I was hoping to provide two resources that I have found on my previously mentioned topic, New Zealand government should adopt a policy of subsidising healthy foods by taxing unhealthy foods, with opposing arguments. Instead what I have found through my research is that it is widely accepted and agreed upon that such a policy would have positive effects. I found that almost all scholarly resources provide evidence of ways it can work and ways that could hinder its success. This is what I have provided below, firstly a paper that agrees on a policy but brings forward possible hindrances and the second paper focuses on what sort of success a policy could have.

Cornelsen, Green, Dangour, & Smith (2014, p. 22) suggest that a policy regarding the pricing of foods and beverages is only one instrument within the food environment and cannot be the single answer. The authors go on to explain the lack of understanding and proof in what indirect effects a pricing policy would have, be it positive or negative. For instance, if a subsidy applied makes one food cheaper this allows more funds to be spent elsewhere, it doesn’t mean that the money will be spent on another healthy option. Another issue that Cornelsen et al. (2014) bring forward is the difference in spending behaviours within different socioeconomic groups, meaning a policy may have different effects for a different group. What I believe the authors of this paper have brought into the wider research is instead of looking for one answer to the problem look to change the entirety of the food environment to influence our diet behaviours and choices for the better.

The second paper I have brought forward today is one that goes through the procedure of measuring the possible effect that a policy may have on mortality from diet related disease within New Zealand. Cliona, Eyles, Genc, Scarborough, Rayner, Mizdrak, Nnoaham, & Blakely (2015) estimates that applying a number of diet related taxes and subsidies could avert or postpone deaths by between 560 to 2400 lives every year. Furthermore, the author's study estimates a drop-in purchase on taxed goods and an increase in purchases of subsidised goods, meaning they would expect positive effects on dietary habits and choices. I feel the authors were using this study to bring to attention the estimated amount of deaths prevented or postponed by the introduction of a policy to make people aware of how significant it can be. I think they wrote this paper in a position of hope that more would look further into initiating such a policy in the near future.

As I stated in my introduction, I have found it hard to source references of a scholarly level that is completely against the use of such a policy, for this reason, I have hoped to provide two references that may encourage further thought and research from my readers.

Reference List:

Cornelsen, L., Green, R., Dangour, A., & Smith, R. (2014). Why fat taxes won’t make us thin

. Journal of Public Health, 37(1), 18-23.

Cliona, N, M., Eyles, H., Genc, M., Scarborough, P., Rayner, M., Mizdrak, A., Nnoaham, K.,

& Blakely, T. (2015). Effects of health-related food taxes and subsidies on mortality from diet-related disease in New Zealand: An econometric-epidemiologic modelling study. PLoS, 10(7).