This article was first published at The National Times

As our lives become increasingly saturated with technology, digital media and the internet, it’s no secret that our younger generations are spending less time in the great outdoors. Whether it’s hours spent in front of the TV, surfing the internet, playing on a games console or a combination of these, kids today seem far less inclined to enjoy the natural world than in previous generations.

While older generations have long bemoaned a decline in the time spent outside, there has been growing speculation that such a shift might also have negative health implications for those involved. According to Dr William Bird, health adviser to Natural England, a lack of exposure to nature has the potential to adversely affect the mental health of society’s youngest members.

But while Generations Y and Z are more likely to spend time playing video games than recreating the adventures of Enid Blyton’s ‘Famous Five’, they are not without inspiration when it comes to enjoying what nature has to offer.

Bear Grylls is a former member of the British Special Services and has carved a place for himself in the popular consciousness through his TV show, Man vs. Wild. In the show, Grylls encounters various types of hostile terrain and places himself in stressful situations in order to demonstrate survival techniques.

The show has attracted some notoriety due to Grylls’ willingness to subject himself to otherwise-repulsive scenarios – eating unappetising critters for example – but it’s his passion for the outdoors and an unbridled sense of adventure that has the potential to inspire younger viewers to get off the couch and head outside.

As well as his Man vs. Wild adventures, Grylls has had a leading role in a number of truly impressive expeditions. In 2003 he led the first team to cross the North Atlantic Ocean in an ‘open’ rigid inflatable boat, in 2000 he led the first team to circumnavigate the UK by jet ski and in 1998, at the age of 23, he became the youngest Briton (at the time) to reach the summit of Mt. Everest.

But if Bear Grylls has the potential to motivate otherwise-sedentary TV viewers into action, then the efforts of Ed Stafford should be enough to spark an adventuring revolution among our younger generations.

Earlier this month the former British Army captain became the first person to hike the length of the Amazon River. The epic trek took Stafford 859 days to complete in which time he faced hostility from local indigenous communities, the constant danger of not finding enough food and unwanted attention from all manner of creepy crawlies.

Stafford’s journey began in April 2008 when he reached the summit of the Nevado Mismi, a peak in the Peruvian Andes which is widely credited as the source of the Amazon River. At that point Stafford had the company of friend Luke Collyer but after the two had a falling out and the latter left the expedition, Stafford continued on alone.

Five months into the trek, Stafford was joined by Gadiel ‘Cho’ Sanchez Rivera, a local Peruvian who planned to accompany Stafford for five days. When Stafford reached the mouth of the Amazon two years later, Cho was still by his side.

While it’s pretty hard not to be inspired by Stafford’s efforts, not everyone is going to find the idea of a two-and-a-half year hike all that appealing. In fact, only a small percentage of the population would even consider embarking on such an expedition.

According to to Dr Brad Wright, a lecturer in the School of Psychological Science at La Trobe University, it is a sense of ‘hardiness’ that sets the likes of Stafford and Grylls apart from the majority of the population.

‘Hardiness is defined by higher levels of commitment, challenge and control’, he said.  ‘Those with a drive to push themselves to achieve often gain immense satisfaction from achieving their ambitions.’

Sure, the efforts Bear Grylls and Ed Stafford might be beyond the reach of most people, but that’s not to say they shouldn’t be cause for inspiration. And, at a time when our younger generations are spending less time outside than ever before and the average Australian adult spends 90 per cent of their time indoors, there are certainly worse people we could be looking up to.

I was always taught that it’s important to respect other people’s cultures and ways of life, even if we don’t fully understand them. That great biblical phrase says it all – ‘don’t judge others lest you be judged yourself’. And with the percentage of foreign-born Australian residents rising steadily, there has never been a more important time to be respectful and understanding of foreign cultures. But it got me thinking – where do we draw the line?

In parts of the Eastern world, it is normal to clean one’s backside with the left hand and a splash of water as opposed to the toilet-paper method favoured by citizens of ‘the west’. While the idea of cleaning one’s backside with an uncovered hand isn’t all that enticing, I certainly don’t feel compelled to label the method’s users as filthy or uncivilised. In fact, the concept is cause for great curiosity – has this method been proven to be any less hygienic than using toilet paper? How do proponents of the hand-and-water method view us toilet paper users?

In much the same way, seeing footage of a Tibetan sky burial doesn’t invoke feelings of outrage or disgust, merely curiosity. I’ll admit, the idea of being torn apart by vultures upon death does seem quite alien, but it also makes quite a bit of sense.  Burying bodies in Tibet is a virtual impossibility given the lack of soft soil in the upper Himalayas. Furthermore, Buddhist teachings rather convincingly suggest that the body becomes an ‘empty vessel’ from the moment of death – the time at which the soul leaves the body. By feeding the unneeded body to waiting vultures the energy that was on loan to the individual while living is returned to nature in the form of sustenance for the Gyps Fulvus.

But before I suffocate in a cloud of my own self-righteous congratulation, let’s tackle some cases where cultural understanding might not come as easily.

One of the criticisms that is most commonly levelled at Islamic society is that its religious teachings call for the systematic oppression of women. Verse 34 of Surah An-Nisa, the fourth chapter of the Qur’an, reads ‘Men have superiority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient.’

To a lot of people in ‘the west’ this view would seem to clash quite significantly with the notion of gender equality and the advances made by the women’s rights movements of the past century. The office of French president Nicolas Sarkozy recently said that the face-covering niqab is an ‘attack on women’s dignity, and it is not acceptable to French society.’ Consequently, Mr Sarkozy is pushing to ban French women from wearing the niqab in public, much to the disgust of some commentators.

While it’s not completely unreasonable to argue that Islam does promote the systematic oppression of women, there is also a reasonable counter-argument to consider.

In August of 2008, Andrew Denton’s sublime interview programme, Enough Rope, featured the brilliant Waleed Aly and his wife Susan Carland. Ms. Carland converted to Islam as an adult and on the program she described the frustration of being a Western woman wearing the hijab.

‘Imagine if pretty much every day someone said to you “So Andrew, you know a lot people find that shirt oppressive…Does your wife make you dress like that?”’

As an obviously-intelligent and well-spoken woman, isn’t Ms. Carland able to decide what items of clothing she wears? Isn’t it also possible that she might even enjoy wearing the hijab? Are we really in a position to start telling Muslim women that we know better than them?

But even if we respect a Muslim woman’s right to wear the hijab, there must surely be a point at which our respect for foreign culture must stop. Would we be as willing to respect the process known as ‘Female Genital Cutting’ (FGC), for example?

FGC is common in parts of Africa and in some parts of the Middle East and, according to the World Health Organisastion (WHO), ‘comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.’

Sure, I can understand that FGC is an ancient tradition that, according to its adherents, ensures a young girl will be wholly pure at the time of marriage and her subsequent defloration. However, I can also understand that it is an excruciatingly painful ‘procedure’ that usually happens without the use of anaesthetic and which renders the unwilling participant unable to urinate,walk, stand or even sit without extreme pain.

Is it even possible to construct an argument which holds FGC as a cultural practice worthy of respect or even understanding? And if FGC is indeed a blatant example of humans rights abuse, as WHO argues it is, where do we draw the line? At what point do we have the right to say ‘I do not respect your way of life’?

You see, there’s nothing black and white when it comes to cultural relativism. How are we supposed to measure the objective ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’ of a various cultures? What makes the practices of one culture ‘right’ and the practices of another, ‘wrong’?

Having said that, there are some cases in which finding cultural truth might not be that difficult.

According to seismologists, a number of the earth’s tectonic plates happen to meet under the country we now know as Iran. This phenomenon has resulted in a number of deadly earthquakes in recent times, not least of all the 2003 quake that killed 25,000 in the ancient city of Bam.

According to one Iranian cleric, Hojjat ol-eslam Kazem Sediqi, Iran’s relationship with earthquakes is not due to the country’s proximity to various fault lines, rather it is the direct result of Allah’s disapproval of immodestly dressed women in Iran.

‘Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society which increases earthquakes.’

Leaving aside the extremely questionable suggestion that it is a woman’s fault if a man acts inappropriately, are we really to believe that Allah would kill thousands of people just because women decide not to cover their arms? What kind of loving God would do that?

While I respect Mr Sediqi’s right to believe that Allah kills thousands in the name of modesty, this particular culture clash might be rather simply solved – either it’s true that earthquakes are caused by immodest dress, or it’s not.

Prove to me that a causal link between a lack of clothing and the movement of tectonic plates exists Mr. Sediqi, and then I’ll try to be understanding. Until then, you will have to forgive me if I’m a little hesitant…

I’ve never understood the term ‘night owl’. The word ‘night’ seems more than a little superfluous in this case – I mean, how many owls do you see flying around during the day?

Misgivings about its composition aside, ‘night owl’ is still a term that I identify with quite strongly.  When left to my own devices I’ll often find myself staying awake until after 3am and waking sometime after 10am.

If my mother is to be believed, such sleep patterns can be explained by a phenomenon known as ‘delayed sleep phase syndrome’ (DSPS). According to an article on sleepdisorderchannel.com people with DSPS have an ‘internal biological clock’ that doesn’t match up with the ‘external environment’. Furthermore, ‘patients with DSPS typically are unable to fall asleep before 2am and have extreme difficulty waking early (e.g. by 7am).’

This would certainly explain why I struggle to get out of bed for the 4am breakfast shift. It also gives me a valid excuse for refusing to do such shifts – ‘sorry boss, I can’t. I’ve got DSPS!’

My mother recently cured herself of a lifelong (but only recently diagnosed) DSPS affliction through the use of tinted goggles.

Exposure to blue light is widely believed to inhibit the production of melatonin – a chemical produced by the pineal gland which causes us to become drowsy. By wearing blue goggles in the morning my mother was able to decrease the amount of melatonin being produced in her brain, thereby preventing her from feeling excessively tired. By wearing amber-coloured, blue-light-blocking goggles in the evening she was able to increase her melatonin supply, making her feel tired before she normally would.

I mean, it makes perfect sense. During the day we are exposed to a significant amount of blue light courtesy of Rayleigh scattering. This slows melatonin production and thereby prevents us from falling asleep during the day. Conversely, once the sun has set, melatonin production is able to commence which then begins to make us tired. The use of tinted-goggles merely brings greater control to the system and allows the user to sleep and wake closer to the desired time.

While DSPS can be a great inconvenience to those whose suffer from it, it also has potential benefits. For example, when our hotel’s front office was short-staffed for Sunday night’s 11pm to 7am shift they asked me to switch teams and help out. I agreed straight away, grateful for the experience and also confident that my sleep habits would make staying awake for an overnight shift fairly simple. In theory anyway.

In order to properly adjust myself to the overnight shift I began preparing on Friday night. I got home at 9:30pm and by the time 11pm rolled around I was already struggling. By 3am I had gotten my second wind and I somehow managed to last until 7am.

I woke the next day at 2pm and, after working that evening, I upped the ante, pushing through until 8:30am before finally succumbing to sleep.

To my great surprise I was able to put the late nights to use, getting stuff done while there was no one around. But by the same token, it also gets kind of lonely at the time of night – while normal people tend to be asleep at 4am I was awake, cleaning the house in a haze of semi-consciousness.

To my great frustration the aforementioned haze seemed to linger across the weekend, despite getting eight hours sleep each day. Even now, almost three days after finishing the overnight shift, I can still feel it tugging at my eyelids like some invisible weight. It’s kind of like jet lag without the excitement of overseas travel.

The fact that it was only a single shift probably compounded the problem as I needed to get back into a ‘normal’ routine straight away. Altering one’s sleeping habits so drastically for one night is like, to return to the jet lag analogy, what it might feel like to fly to London for the weekend. Not really worth the effort.

Beyond all that, there is one important issue that continues to confuse me – when you wake up at 7pm after going to bed at 10am, what meal are you supposed to eat? Do you eat dinner, given that it’s 7pm? Or do you eat breakfast given that you’ve just woken up?

But the inconvenience of not knowing what meal to eat and a particular time is of little concern when compared to claims made by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2007. According to Vincent Cogliano from WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) there is ‘enough of a pattern in people who do shift work to recognise that there’s an increase in cancer’. While the evidence is not entirely conclusive, it was enough to prompt the IARC to add ‘overnight shift work’ to a list of probable carcinogens.

Add to that an increased risk of developing depression and I think I might have grounds to refuse any future night shifts…

I can only imagine how difficult it must be to be the parent of a new-born child – assuming complete responsiblility for the welfare of an otherwise helpless individual. Naturally some decisions that parents must make on behalf of their child are of little or no consequence – like deciding which clothes your baby will wear for the day – but other decisions, like whether or not to get your baby son circumcised, well, that’s a different matter entirely.

Many of you folks would no doubt have stumbled upon Channel Seven’s creatively titled current affairs programme ‘Sunday Night’ last weekend where you might have seen Monique Wright’s report on the ‘new’ research that has emerged regarding the potential medical benefits of circumcision. If you didn’t get to see the programme or if you are keen to see the segment again, it can be found here – at least until next Sunday.

It’s obviously a contentious issue – parents and people in general are hesitant when knives and genitals are mentioned in the same sentence but at the same time if the evidence suggests that our boys are better off circumcised then not then we obviously have an obligation to at least consider the option. Before we get rational and actually look at the science behind circumcision though, let’s do some history and some cursory glancin’.

Circumcision has been practiced for thousands of years, the earliest recorded cases coming from the ancient Egyptians. Jewish scripture is replete with the mention of the necessity of circumcision and to this day all Jewish boys are required to participate in brit milah in their eighth day of life in order to welcome them into their covenant with God. While it is not mandated by the Qur’an the majority of Muslim boys undergo Khitan as well, the widespread view in the Muslim world being that circumcision serves to introduce boys to Islam and foster a sense of belonging within the Islamic community.

Of course parents throughout the ages have had their boys circumcised for entirely non-religious reason as well – “we want him to look like his Dad”, “it’s better for hygene” and “it prevents disease” are all often cited as justification.
Despite the ongoing debate it seems to be a fairly basic issue to me – in order to get your son circumcised the health benefits must outweigh the ethical and moral considerations. “What considerations?” I hear you ask. Thanks for the lead in.

If you put aside the potential health benefits of circumsion for one second and consider in isolation the process of cutting a portion of a baby boy’s penis off, how is this tradition any different to the phenomenon known as female genital cutting? Both procedures take place on the assumption that it is morally justified for parent(s) to subject an unconsenting minor to an operation which causes significant pain and discomfort on the grounds that such pain is fleeting and that the procedure is of overall benefit. Sure, it might be a strong comparison to make, but it is a valuable one, if only to ensure that parents don’t make lightly the decision to circumcise their sons.

While we are in the business of dissuading parents from cutting chunks off their sons, besides circumcision, since when has preventative surgery been recommended as acceptable medical practice? As one of the doctors in the aforementioned video points out, would we be willing to take a pre-emptive strike against our noses in the fear that we might one day contract a cancer of the nose as a result of over-exposure to UV rays?

If you want the official word on whether or not circumcision is a valuable course of action, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians suggests that there is “no evidence of benefit outweighing harm for circumcision as a routine procedure in the neonate”. The American Medical Association similarly reports that “professional societies representing Australian, Canadian and American pediatricians do not recommend circumcision of male newborns”.
However in 2007 the World Health Organisation released a report suggesting that “the research evidence that circumcision is efficacious in reducing sexual transmission of HIV from women to men is compelling”. That can’t be a bad thing, I mean, who’s going to argue that we shouldn’t be doing everything in our power to stop the spread of HIV around the world?

The reality is that there are other things we can do to prevent the spread of HIV without having to take a knife to new-born boys in developing countries – things like spending more time teaching people about the need to wear condoms – but wait, I don’t want to steal the WHO’s thunder; “Male circumcision should never replace other known methods of HIV prevention and should always be considered as part of a comprehensive HIV provention package, which includes: prompting delay in the onset of sexual relations, abstinence from penetrative sex and reduction in the number of sexual partners; providing and promoting correct and consistent use of male and female condoms…”

Before we wrap this bad boy up, let’s glance cursorily at Dr. Brian Morris’ website – he’s the guy in the ‘Sunday Night’ video who is advocating the introduction of mandatory circumcision (good luck with that). In amongst a swathe of generally interesting pro-circumcision propaganda I stumbled upon a provocatively titled brochure – ‘Sex and Circumcision – What every woman needs to know’. You see, not only does Dr. Morris advocate the introduction of mandatory circumcision in new-born boys, he also urges women to encourage circumcision in their sexual partners, for the woman’s own wellbeing.

As far as I can tell, of the seven ways that women benefit from a circumcised partner – according to Dr. Morris – five can be achieved just as well by using a condom, one is a generalisation and over-simplification of the sexual preferences and practices of women and the other is a confusing attempt to justify circumcision as a preventative measure for phimosis. Other than that, I reckon it’s a great idea to try to convince your boyfriend to cut part of his dick off, if only for the reaction that would ensue…

Her: Um, baby. You know how I’m always worried about getting diseases and stuff down there?
Him: Down where?
Her: You know…
Him: Oh. Down there.
Her: Yeah, well, there’s this doctor who reckons he can stop me from getting all sorts of nasties.
Him: Yeah? Sounds like a good idea. What’s involved?
Her: Oh nothing much. They just take you into hospital for the afternoon and cut off a chunk of your junk.
Him: I don’t think we should be together...

Every so often working in the hospitality industry gives you a valuable insight into just how irresponsible some parents actually are. Some days it’s a mother who leaves her two year old bare-foot child to run around the restaurant unsupervised while she cackles away with her friends over a sixth glass of champagne, other days it might be the mother that disappears to the TAB at the other end of the hotel while her four-year old son supervises himself in the play area.

The other night, however, was something truly special. As I headed from the bar to the host stand with a handful of menus, I saw a father pouring beer from his nearly-empty pint glass into the open mouth of his son, who looked no more than two or three years old.

Is it really any surprise that binge drinking among young people – both over and under the legal drinking age – is so prevalent when parents deem this to be acceptable behaviour? After all, if a child’s attitude toward alcohol use is determined largely by their parents’ attitudes then what kind of message does pouring Carlton Draught down a three-year-old’s throat send to that child?

Alcohol use and abuse has been making headlines around the nation a lot recently. Over the last two years alone alcohol-fuelled violence in Melbourne’s QBH nightclub has resulted in the deaths of two young patrons, a 70% increase on the tax on so-called ‘alcopops’ was introduced last year in an attempt to dissuade ‘at risk’ drinkers from purchasing their alcoholic beverage of choice and various AFL and NRL stars have been caught drink-driving and promptly suspended by their clubs. There seems to be little doubt that some young people are drinking too much and too often.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that in 2004 19% of males and 11% of females in the 18-24 age bracket were guilty of ‘binge drinking’ – defined as seven or more standard drinks for males, five or more for females – at least once a week.

The federal and state governments have an unenviable task in this dilemma. To generalise, the public is looking to the governments to provide a solution to the problem, and perhaps rightly enough, but this isn’t a problem that will go away just by throwing tax increases or 2am lock-outs at it. The consumption of alcohol is so deeply embedded in our culture that it is going to take something drastic to alter people’s perception of it.

You see, there is also a bit of vested interest here. While the government has to be seen to be doing something about the problem, they profit massively from it. In the 1997-8 financial year the federal government pocketed over $4 billion in alcohol and tobacco taxes, and the Australian Medical Association estimates that in 2001 that figure was as high as $7 billion. Similarly, the Australian Football League, while trying to make a stand against the alcohol abuse demonstrated by a handful of its players, is enjoying a lucrative sponsorship provided by none other than Carlton Draught.

But the question is, why do young people feel the need to go out and get on the turps every weekend? Sure, I might be one of the aforementioned ‘young people’ and I might be guilty of the occasional spot of overindulgence, but I couldn’t give you a definitive reason for why I did so. Is it that it allows us to overcome certain inhibitions that might plague us in a state of sobriety? Is it a case of ‘well my mates are doing it, so…’? Is it that we like the feeling of losing control? Is it that alcohol provides us with an escape from the monotony and boredom of every day life? Or is it that we are over-privileged first-world kids with too much money to spend?

The reasons really aren’t that clear and most likely vary from person to person. What is clear is that alcohol use and abuse is responsible for massive problems, both for individuals and society. Let’s have a look at some figures;
Around 40% of the traffic fatalities that occured in the USA in 2004 – 16,694 – were the result of alcohol-related motor-vehicle crashes; In 1998 ‘hazardous and harmful’ alcohol consumption contributed to 3,271 deaths in Australia alone; the annual cost of alcohol-related problems to the Australian community is around $5 billion.

All this scare-mongering isn’t to say that I think alcohol should be made illegal, far from it. This is a bigger issue than some dickhead dad pissing-on with his infant son – it’s an issue of personal freedom and the ability to decide what we pump into our bodies. Sure, I might be putting myself at greater risk of various cancers and other medical conditions by ‘getting on it’ of a weekend but that’s my choice as an autonomous adult. Similarly, if I wanted to make the undeniably dumb decision to take up smoking tomorrow – incidentally, tobacco usage contributed to over 19,000 deaths in 1998, six times more than alcohol – then that too is my right. Why stop there?

If I woke up tomorrow morning and decided that I wanted to ‘go green’, if you know what I mean, then I should be allowed to do that. Should the government be allowed to control what I do or don’t put into my own body?

Again, it comes back to a double-standard on the government’s behalf. While the purchase of alcohol or tobacco are perfectly legal, the possession of marijuana in Australia will land you with a nasty fine, the size of which is dependent on the state in which you live and the quantity you possess. This is in spite of the fact that countless studies have proven that marijuana is far less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco, as demonstrated, for example, by the research done by the USA’s National Institute on Drug Abuse which has shown that marijuana is less addictive than both nicotine and alcohol.

Furthermore marijuana does not cause or exarcerbate violent tendencies among young people in the same way that alcohol does, and compared with the thousands of deaths attributed to tobacco and alcohol usage, marijuana usage has not been responsible for a single death, ever. Sure, there a major health risks associated with marijuana usage, but then check out the list of stuff you put yourself at risk of by smoking, a perfectly legal activity.

Let’s be clear about one thing here – I’ve never smoked a single joint or taken a single hit from a bong – and I don’t intend to – but it’s not about me. It’s about people having the freedom to decide what they want to do with their bodies without having the government impose restrictions on them.

You see, I reckon the people in the weed legalisation movement have missed out on a great business opportunity here – that is, wouldn’t the government be far more willing to legalise marijuana if they could benefit financially from it’s distribution? Hmm, I feel a business venture coming on…