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Having worked in tobacco control for 20 years, Jane Martin saw that the processed food and advertising industry were targeting children using similar marketing techniques. She is now using her…
One in three Australian women experience violence from a male partner or an ex-partner. For one woman a week, this is fatal. This epidemic has seen family related violence crime increase by 288…
These days, classrooms seem packed with children who report to the office to take medication at lunchtimes – or whose behaviour problems come with labels that didn’t exist when their parents were…
Body image, bullying, cyber-safety, school exams, risk-taking, identity, authority, drugs and alcohol … the list of pressures teenagers face is endless. And let’s face it, it’s not an easy time for p…
Articles and commentaries on Asperger’s Syndrome are rife with references to the ‘condition’, ‘sufferers’ and ‘disability’. But many people who live with an Asperger’s diagnosis – for themselves or t…
In May 2012 Kirstie Clements was sacked after more than a decade in the editor’s chair at Vogue Australia. In her book The Vogue Factor (and this edition of Lunchbox/Soapbox) Clements tells the…
Pregnancy is natural, healthy and fun, right? Sure it is, if you’re lucky. But instead of a natural glow and orgasmic birth, Monica Dux experienced pregnancy as a medium-level catastrophe. In Things…
Jill Stark, a Sunday Age writer specialising in alcohol and public health issues, came to write her first book, High Sobriety, after one big night too many. On January 1 2011, she woke up with the…
We live in the foodie age – where celebrity chefs are the new rock stars. But while organic food is a must-have fashion accessory, obesity and food intolerances are on the rise.But there are good…
At the 1960 games in Rome, the first known Olympic doper, Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen, died after being given Roniacol before his race – a drug intended to increase blood circulation.Yet…
The Wall Street Journal calls Jared Diamond ‘a star among public intellectuals’.The big-brained anthropologist built his own brand of intellectual blockbuster with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns…
In 30 years, Melbourne’s CBD will have another 220,000 new residents. A ‘second CBD’ has been proposed for Melbourne’s west, along with a third runway for Tullamarine airport – and more green wedge l…
Men and women both suffer depression, but men experience it differently. They’re less likely to acknowledge it and more likely to seek comfort at the bottom of a beer glass, or other unhelpful…
In the clash between money and conservation, money usually wins – with devastating results in a land that tolerates few mistakes. Tim Flannery delivers a wake-up call about the consequences of…
Death is the most personal of matters, but it’s also a political hot potato.Most of us don’t choose (or even expect) the way in which we die, but for the terminally ill, death is a looming certainty …
Dr Nouria Salehi OAM is executive director of the Afghan Australian Development Organisation. A voluntary, non-profit, non-government, member organisation, its primary purpose is to implement…
When President Obama was welcomed for his ‘night of friendship’ dinner with Prime Minister Gillard in Canberra last year, he feasted on ‘a macadamia and thyme encrusted lamb canon with avocado cream …
Get Well Soon!: My (Un)brilliant Career as a Nurse is Kristy Chambers' first book – and it’s just right for readers with a taste for black humour (and a strong stomach). In this frank and often…
Barbara Arrowsmith-Young turned her life-defining learning disabilities into an unlikely asset. Unable to process language or decode symbols, she compensated with her fierce determination to learn…
Composer Joshua Cody says he’s not really a writer – but his raw, cerebral cancer memoir, [sic], suggests otherwise. The New York Times called it ‘the memoir of the year’ and praised the way its…
Across the world, the story is the same. Sex scandal. Media frenzy. Another prominent man caught with his pants down. Sex therapist and social commentator Bettina Arndt talks about why men take such …
Ken Haley speaks about the advantages of wheeled mobility, and asks what disability grips those bipeds who can’t see they should be in envy of wheelchair users — those lucky souls on a thrill ride…
In light of Tony Abbott’s newly proposed policy aspiration to extend the childcare rebate to nannies, host Sally Warhaft discusses childcare and family/work life in Australia with Catherine Deveny…
For over a decade, Jamie Oliver’s books and TV series have inspired millions across the world to cook from scratch using fresh ingredients, and to enjoy the pleasure of eating great food. In recent y…
Through century upon century, societies have located much of their moral panic and hysteria around a victimised view of youth. Whether it’s generational or technological change, the shock of the new …
From our Sad/Angry/Happy series, our experts this time turn their eyes to outrage, frustration and fury — from the electrical signals and balance of chemicals that fire up our brains, to the social p…
For the first of our Sad/Angry/Happy series, Noni Hazlehurst, Ben Pobjie, Andrew Robb and Nicole Highet explore sadness, vulnerability and ‘coming out’ with one’s sorrow.Pobjie, a comedian and…
Anne Manne is a Melbourne writer, essayist and social philosopher. She has been a regular columnist for The Australian and The Age. In her Lunchbox/Soapbox appearance, she stressed the importance of …
No longer is alarmism about modern-day psychiatry the preserve of conspiracy theorists and Scientologists. That a forthcoming appearance at the Wheeler Centre by Jon Ronson, author of The Psychopath…
Fantasy master Terry Pratchett has come under fire in the UK for his involvement in a television documentary screened on Monday night advocated assisted suicide. In the documentary, which was…
(Click to watch video.) Emma Forrest’s career as a writer almost predates her adolescence. She’s toured with pop bands, written a column in the Times…
Joining us in this edition of Lunchbox/Soapbox is Dr David Tacey, Associate Professor and Reader in Arts at La Trobe University, where he teaches literature, spirituality and Jungian psychology.The a…
Click to watch video. Could you be suffering from “motivational deficiency disorder”? While Ray Moynihan may be satirising the discovery of diseases, his…
As the search for the so-called ‘Pink Viagra’ continues, controversy surrounds the nature of the medical ‘condition’ such a pill would treat. Do women with a low libido really have a disease called ‘…
Pregnancy is natural, healthy and fun. Yeah, right. When Melbourne writer and procreator Monica Dux got pregnant she failed to see what all the joy was meant to be about. Here, Monica grapples with h…
Being a reader isn’t about sitting in an ivory tower, turning your back on the world. The relationship between life and the page is more fluid. We’re shaped by what we read; at home, in our world…
Peter Singer argues for a beef tax.
