Archive for the ‘Social Marketing’ Category

Internship in Digital Marketing 1-2 days per week for University students the heart of CBD – Pedestrian TV

Join a small, international professional team of Opal Minded, dedicated to excellence in high-end jewellery design, gem quality, sales and customer service.

Opal Minded is an Australian family-owned high-end opal jewellery boutique in the heart of The Rocks, with an opal-mining arm in Queensland and a creative studio in the centre of Sydney. Opal Minded grew out of the family tradition of opal-mining and the passion of its founder for the intangible fineness of objects of beauty, such as opals.

Opal Minded enjoys high esteem among its international clientele and the industry (see its Google and TripAdvisor reviews). Its company mission is to increase the worlds happiness quotient by exceeding its customers expectations and sharing with them the beauty of Australian precious gemstones in unique, bespoke and fine jewellery. Its company ethos is customer and team-work centred.

Key responsibilities include:

You should have:

What we can offer:

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Internship in Digital Marketing 1-2 days per week for University students the heart of CBD - Pedestrian TV

At SXSW, A Pathetic Tech Future Struggles to Be Born – VICE

Image:Doodle House via Vice

It did not really hit me that I was in a special sort of hell until I was walking aimlessly through Austin for SXSW and came across a venue with a few inflated geodesic domes. There were large 3D anthropomorphic rabbits plastered everywhere, which I gathered were somehow related to crypto though it wasn't clear how. Large screens inside and outside of the domes streamed a panel where a member of Linkin Park crafted a song that would be minted as an NFT as a discussion about the liberatory potential of the metaverse carried on. And somewhere, a loud voice rang out a cultish mantra: This is changing the future. This is FLUF House. This is the Hume Collective, so remember why you are here. Remember the power that you have. The power of this community, and when it gets hard, remember you are not alone.

This week, while at SXSW to speak on two panels about crypto-skepticism and algorithmic labor, I was able to check out if crypto, NFTs, web3, and the metaverse really were taking over Austin. What I found was a deeply underwhelming, mundane, and frankly pathetic series of demonstrations and setups that suggest if these digital technologies do take over the world, itll be because of how much money their biggest boosters have and how easy it is for that money to generate interest as opposed to anything of true social utility.

NFT art installations, augmented and virtual reality (collectively called XR or extended reality at SXSW) demonstrations like Facebook offering a digital POV where you were the last person rescued from the rubble left by the 9/11 attacksan absurd and disturbing idea for a "metaverse" that became an emblematic symbol of this year's SXSW. But that's not all. There were crypto-influencer parties and DJ sets, metaverse panels, and drones forming QR codes in the sky to advertise the upcoming television adaptation of the Halo video game series. In fact, one company that the state of Texas has accused of selling unregistered securitiesCelsius Network, one of the worlds largest crypto lenderswas front and center in one of SXSWs exhibit halls set aside for booth presentations.

For some attendees, Im sure all this felt like the future was here. And yet, despite all the talk I heard about ushering in a new era of diversity and inclusion, it was hard to not notice that every room felt largely the same: mobs of white wealthy men who quickly volunteered that they worked in finance, tech, marketing, or some buzzy fusion of the three. This, at aconference in a state where a series of anti-trans legislative and executive pushes culminated in Governor Greg Abbott directing the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate families of trans children who receive gender-affirming care last month.

When the conversation inevitably touched upon the industrys apparent homogeneity at SXSW despite making strides in recent years, the same old sort of posturing followed.

"I don't want to live in a metaverse built by white men," Alex Smeele, the white co-founder of New Zealand NFT project FLUF, told me in an interview. "If we don't engage the rest of the worldthe First Nations storytellers, Indigenous peopleit's gonna be a really shit metaverse. Black people invented culture."

The FLUF Project is a venture by New Zealand creative studio Non-Fungible Labs, offering a collection of three-dimensional rabbit avatars as the cornerstone of a community. The focus on rabbits traces back to a giant Flemish rabbit owned by a creative director that Smeele said has become the "God of our ecosystem."

While FLUF doesnt have much of a public roadmap (Smeele said "I don't think anyone would believe the stuff we have planned" and "when you commit to a roadmap from far out, especially in such a fast-moving industry, you often kind of dig yourself into a hole"), it seems to largely center on creating an ecosystem that can be fully commercialized by community members who will also be content creators and consumers. All that is then wrapped up in rhetoric about creating fully commodified and commercialized communities where interactions are mediated by transactions and markets that will actually liberate people from a world dominated by transactions and markets.

"The biggest opportunity of the metaverse: it's actually just the ability to unlock people's creativity again. I think everyone is born creative, but current educational structures just squeezes that out of most people pretty quickly," Smeele said. "So it's about how we can rethink how we learn how we play, how we work in ways that feed back to the society as a whole and empower the individual."

Now, FLUF isnt particularly unique amongst the crypto projects at SXSW, but it is emblematic: cryptos speculative fervor has driven it to a total market capitalization of $1.8 trillion (down from a November peak of $3 trillion), each project speaks in incredibly soaring rhetoric about how it would change the world (an open metaverse was FLUFs Manchurian Candidate wake word), but almost none of that was decipherable when you actually entered a space they spent time and money designing themselves.

Like most of the crypto activations (another word for installation), FLUF had free drinks (though one of the bars was infested with bees so I kept my distance) and live music and screens playing panels attended by FLUF co-founders. There were large dimly lit domes, one of which had an altar to a rabbit within and above pictured visions of an overgrown Bugs Bunny trapped in a sparse desert cave. "This feels like a bad trip," I heard someone mutter at the exact moment I leaned over to tell a friend the same thought.

Above us, a woman in a trance stood on a platform and plucked on harp strings that spanned the length of the venue with such vigor that a few people I talked to and eavesdropped on debated whether she was actually playing or a recording was doing the work.

"I'm not really sure what the point of any of this is," Liam, a social marketing manager who held a few crypto-tokens, told me during one of my visits to FLUFs installation. "It's all a bit lame and I don't see any use for this but maybe other people are interested so maybe I should buy in?"

"I wish I knew what any of this was supposed to mean," one attendee told me before shrugging and leaving the venue. Another person who tried to play me in beer pong (a table was set up near vendor booths near the front) laughed when I asked if they had a FLUF NFT and ignored my attempts to ask again. A couple I met in one of the domes argued for a bit about what the purpose of the project was: "a metaverse where we could be animals" said one while the other insisted "an NFT project with a 3D home."

Theres something to all those attempts at an understanding. FLUF imagines itll use infinite scarcity to create highly curated worlds with a mix of the best elements of triple A title games as well as community content. Smeele imagined something like a "Lord of the Rings world" along the lines of Player Ready One's branded universes, his descriptions conjuring up images of existing products like Halo's Forge or Epic Games' Fortnite, but somehow less free than the former and more commodified than the latter.

Still, the most common comment from attendees was that they wagered they could make money off of it because they either knew of or heard of people flipping their NFTs for a profit. This, not a desire for community or curation, was the dominant sentiment I encountered not just at FLUF but a host of other crypto, web3, metaverse, and NFT projects and events. When asked about how to curb the sort of speculative interest that seems to drive a lot of interest in the industry, FLUF said they hoped to design NFTs to disincentivize flipping Fluffs.

"You can't ignore the fact that people are seeing this as a way to develop an alternative revenue stream. Your generation has been locked out of the housing market," said Brooke Howard-Smith, another FLUF co-founder. "We can try to find mechanisms and build a community dialogue, when new people come in. I don't want to say 'doctrinated' but certainly onboarded by our super-positive, super inclusive [community]."

It didnt really matter whether it was an empty algorave DJ set at BlockChain Creative Labs (which was a major sponsor of SXSW this year) that scarcely mentioned crypto or the companys own work or whether there were a few spectacles to play around with like at the Doodles House with a wall that let you control a cursor to try out Paint but on a large screen, or an XR showcase like Marcel.arts Gallery where digital artists showcased their art as NFTs. It all was surprisingly mundane and underwhelming.

Cryptos never-ending appearance at SXSW seemed less like a grand conquest than a quiet takeover complete with influencers (Paris Hilton, for example, hosted a DJ set one night), free booze, gimmicky setups, networking, vague program descriptions, and the always-present promise of more money to be made (or lost if you dont join in).

But then again, of course this is the case. Most of the hype around crypto, NFTs, web3, and metaverse is being generated, after all, by already wealthy participants eager to bring fresh blood to the casino. I just expected that the inordinate wealth present in this space would mean something more impressive than Second Life mods being projected onto screensbut maybe that means the hype is working if I naively anticipated anything other than spectacles given how little of this space is anything other than speculation: speculative finance, speculative tech, and speculative visions.

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At SXSW, A Pathetic Tech Future Struggles to Be Born - VICE

Jobs of the week 18 March – Virgin

Looking for a new challenge in your career? Then look no further, there are some brilliant jobs going this week across the Virgin Group

Brand Assistant at Virgin Management

Virgin is one of the most exciting brands in the world, with a reputation for excellence and a unique culture across its diverse range of businesses. Virgin Management is the home of Virgin. It supports the Branson family and the growth of the Virgin brand by developing and nurturing valuable Virgin businesses around the world.

Currently, Virgin Management is recruiting for a Brand Assistant to join its team. The Brand Assistant will provide administrative, event and project support to the Brand team.

Key responsibilities will involve:

Raising POs for supplier payments and tracking project spend

Supporting the Brand Development team on key projects, researching relevant areas, conducting competitor or industry benchmarking exercises, contributing thoughts and suggestions, as well as owning certain elements of the projects

Taking responsibility for the reporting process, consolidation of information, creating templates, prep and updating of content for presentations, PPT formatting and ensuring we hit timelines agreed

Interested? Find out more and apply now.

Virgin Holidays

Supervisor Personal Travel at Virgin Atlantic Holidays

Virgin Atlantic Holidays is looking for a Supervisor to join its Bluewater Retail team. Your aim will be to inspire and build handcrafted holidays to match customers' interests, tastes and budgets. But it doesnt stop there, Virgin Atlantic Holidays is always looking at ways it can blow customers away and create magic moments throughout their journey.

To succeed in this role:

You'll know all the products like the back of your hand, and youll suggest ways to upgrade customers' holidays to really fit with their preferences.

You will drive new business by helping out with creative and attention-grabbing events and social media campaigns.

You'll keep customer-facing merchandise up to date and sales-focused to inspire customer enquiries and sales.

Youll support the Manager with operational performance including rotas, discounting and forward-thinking ideas to grow the business.

You'll help develop your team to support Virgin Atlantic Holidays business objective to be the Most Loved travel company.

Sound good? Find out more and apply now.

Virgin Galactic

Social Media and Community Manager at Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic is seeking a social media manager and proven community builder to help develop the brands overall presence, personality and cultural relevance online.

This role will execute channel-specific strategies, develop social media personas, and drive meaningful interactions with Virgin Galactic customers, followers and beyond. The Social Media and Community Manager will support the Director of Digital Brand Marketing Strategy through content planning and posting, trend monitoring, insight mining, creative and campaign ideation.

The ideal candidate is ambitious, organised, creative, and a step ahead of digital and cultural trends. Sound like you? Find out more and apply now.

Virgin Active

Marketing Executive at Virgin Active

At Virgin Active they cant get enough of inspiring members to live an active life, delivering amazing fitness experiences and service throughout its clubs. To do this, they recruit the very best Support Teams to help club teams deliver to its members.

The Marketing Team is reshaping and this is a great opportunity to be part of this change.

This role will involve:

Creating, reviewing and scheduling of creative jobs with agreed deadlines, working with the creative agencies, in-house design resource and printer to deliver marketing campaigns.

Day to day liaison with the creative agency, internal teams, printers and digital agency.

Weekly communication to the wider marketing team on upcoming projects to ensure all channels are updated accordingly and any assets creation and timelines are agreed

Working with internal teams on new launches (eg new exercise classes); taking the brief and delivering all aspects of in-club marketing and digital support.

Manage content production by facilitating photo and film shoots that align with the brand and campaign direction.

Managing events in club or large scale external events.

Think youre up to the challenge? Find out more and apply now.

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Jobs of the week 18 March - Virgin

Does Samoa Have Adequate Policies to Reduce Obesity and Obesity-Related Disease? – Cureus

Obesity is a complex chronic disease in which abnormal or excess body fat (adiposity) impairs health, increases the risk of long-term medical complications, and reduces lifespan [1]. Long-term medical complications include heart disease, cancer, stroke, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, among others [2]. The worlds population is increasingly becoming overweight or obese, and the prevalence of obesity is associated with rising rates of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). In 1977, Zimmet et al. warned of a diabesity epidemic (obesity and type 2 diabetes) based on studies of small Pacific Island states, forecasting that it was likely to be the biggest epidemic in human history [3]. The accuracy of this prediction is confirmed by recent findings for Samoa where approximately 53.8% of adults; 25 years to 64 years old are obese [4]. Over the period of 1978-2013, in a population of approximately 200,000 Polynesian people, the prevalence of obesity increased from 27.7% to 53.1% in men (2.3% per five years) and 44.4% to 76.7% in women (4.5% per five years) [5]. Obesity prevalence in 2020 is projected to reach 59.0% among men and 81.0% among women, making obesity the leading cause of disability in Samoa [5]. Furthermore, over 60% of the adult population is obese in other small Pacific Island states and territories; Nauru, American Samoa, Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau, and Tonga [6]. Furthermore, Samoans, like other Polynesians, may have a genetic predisposition to diseases associated with obesity such as diabetes and gout [7].

The prevalence of obesity in Samoa and other Pacific Island countries has steadily increased since the 1960s despite more than forty years of behavior change focused public health programs advising Pacific Islanders to consume more fresh local foods and drinks having high sugar content and consume less imported foods and drinks having high sugar contentsand other refined carbohydrates, salt, and fat [8]. As in other developing countries, NCDs in Samoa are a serious challenge because rising health care costs impose increasing financial burdens on the government [8]. Hence, the prevalence of adult obesity in Samoa and some other small Pacific Island countries place a heavy burden on health resources.To tackle the structural contributors to rising obesity, multi-sectorial policies are needed.This article addressed the question of what is really driving obesity rates in Samoa, and whether the policy responses are adequate.

Most studies of the high prevalence of obesity and NCDs in small Pacific Island states and territories locate the causes primarily in dietary and lifestyle changes [5-8]. A revealing study of links between food availability, food prices, and obesity in Samoa found that the total energy available from food increased by 47%, with more than 900 extra calories available per capita per day between 1961 and 2007 [9]. A consequence has been a rise of 18% in mean body mass index (BMI) for men and women aged 35-44 years old also recorded between 1980 and 2007.In that period, the traditional Samoan diet of staple vegetable root and tree crops, coconut, fish and other seafood, native birds, and more rarely, pork and chicken have largely been replaced by imported processed foods such as canned and brined beef, canned fish, mutton flaps, factory-farmed chicken, turkey tails, heavily sweetened beverages, bread and other flour-baked goods, and rice, to name a few [9]. There was virtually no sugar in the pre-colonial diet of Samoans which was high in complex carbohydrates, in contrast to the present day diet patterns where sugar is consumed in large amounts[10,11]. Not only have diets and eating habits changed but Samoans have become less physically active [4].

In 2006, the Government of Samoa decided to change the roads from left-hand to right-hand drive [12]. One of the arguments for doing this was that it would make motor vehicles cheaper so that farmers in Samoa could import cars or trucks bought by their relatives living in New Zealand and Australiato help them develop their plantations and farms and thereby increase production, sales, and export of crops. This policy has resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of privately owned vehicles. However, the downside of this change has been reduced physical activity among the population contributing to obesity.Today farmers and their family members, who used to walk to and from their plantations, carrying their crops in baskets on their shoulders, now use motor vehicles for this purpose. Furthermore, most people walk less but drive even short distances from their homes to shops, churches, and schools for the children.In rural Samoa, it is now rare to see fishermen using the traditional canoes for fishing because the canoes have been replaced by motorized boats.

The prevalence of obesity in Samoa and elsewhere, as is recognized by the World Health Organization, is a result of choicesmade by individual consumers [13]. However, the structural factors in the Samoa context, includeurbanization, preference for wage employment over farming, migration,remittances, poverty, and cheap imported food [13].Imported food is often cheaper than fresh local food, for example, imported factory-farmed chicken parts are much cheaper than locally caught fish and other seafood [9]. A serving of rice or white bread is cheaper than the same amount of taro, which wasthe staple food of all Samoans. The prices of soft drinks are almost the same price as a bottle of water of the same volume, and a green drinking coconut is only slightly cheaper.

Other drivers of obesity in Samoa and other small island countries in the Pacific, also identified by WHO, are global forces, including international free trade and expansion of markets.Statistics for 2018-2019 show that Samoa exports goods worth USD$70m and imports goods worth USD$510m, of which food is a significant component. The latest figures on the value of personal remittances received in Samoa is USD$141,547,900 [14]. Changing aspirations have changed the cultural and social structure; driving people away from subsistence farming to wage-earning and petty trading, and population movements from rural villages to urban areas with a more sedentary lifestyle. Evidence of this trend is demonstrated in a recent study showing that there has been no significant growth in population and economic activity in four representative villages over the past 50 years, due to migration overseas and to urban settlements [15].

The Government of Samoa, like many other small island countries in the Pacific, recognizes the high national costs of NCDs and obesity leading to the development of National NCD Control policies for 2010-2015and 2018-2023, and the Samoa National Health Promotion Policy 2010-2015 [6]. The National Food and Nutrition Policy 2013-2018 is being currently being reviewed to prepare a new and updated nutrition policy for 2021-2025 [16].The NCD policy has five broad key strategic areas: (i) governance, leadership and partnership in health; (ii) health promotion, advocacy, and risk reduction; (ii) health system strengthening to address NCDs; (ii) surveillance, monitoring and evaluation; and (ii) climate change and NCDs.It aligns with other national policies, such as Samoas Strategy for Development (SDS) which has an overriding vision of attaining an improved quality of life for all Samoans[17]. It also aligns with regional and world plans and declarations, such as the World Health Organization Global Action Plan for NCD, 2013-2020, and others [18].

Not only have diets and lifestyles changed in Samoa but so have health delivery systems. The public health system in Samoa was once community-based but is now hospital-based. Between 1930 and 1980, it relied on hundreds of village womens committees throughout Samoa to promote disease prevention, each serviced by a district public health nurse who met with the committees monthly to hold maternal and child health clinics and sanitation inspections. By the 1970s, monthly village health talks by the district nurses included advice on nutrition using health messages formulated for the Pacific Islands region by the South Pacific Commission (now the Secretariat of the Pacific Community).However, in the 1980s, the womens committees were de-linked from the public health nursing services in the Ministry of Health to support a broacher agenda for "women in development" and the policy changes in health services meant that nurses no longer went out to villages (except in the case of special programs), instead people in villages sought advice and treatment from the nearest health center or district hospital, or if they had the means to do so, went to the outpatient clinics at the main hospitals on Upolu and Savaii [19].At the same time, the distribution of the population had begun to change significantly, today only about 60% of the population live in traditional villages; urban settlements have grown around the town of Apia with no effective local government [20].

The public health system in Samoa is now fully under the Samoa Ministry of Health, which is responsible for all the public health services and clinical facilities in the country. These facilities include the main referral hospital located in the capital city of Apia and seven peripheral district hospitals located on the two main islands of Upolu and Savaii. In early 2020, as part of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) national response, a resident medical officer was appointed to each district hospital.There are two medical laboratories and two public pharmaceutical dispensaries, one operated at the main hospital in Apia, and one at the mainhospital on Savaii Island.

Public expenditure on health services in Samoa is one of the highest among the small island countries in the Pacific [21]. Between 80% and 90% of the total health care in Samoa is government-financed, with between 10% and20% payments from private and out-of-pocket expenditure.Aid to the health sector is mostly provided by New Zealand; other donors include China, Australia, and Japan, as well as technical assistance from the WHO and other United Nations agencies.Despite a continued burden of infectious disease, of the total public health expenditure, the clinical care and treatment of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) accounts for over 40% of expenditure, and in addition, the cost of operating the hemodialysisservices in Samoa by the Samoa Kidney Foundation is estimated at $96,715/patient/year (local currency) or USD 38,686[21].

Samoas health policy is now re-emphasizing community-based interventions such as school programs to promote physical education and after-school sport, and engagement with village womens committee to support screening of NCD risk factors among members of the community and referring those who are at high risk for further medical treatment.But for the most part, the focus is on the promotion of behavior change to reduce the prevalence of obesity through social marketing explaining risk factors and advocating healthy diets and lifestyles.Health messages are disseminated through community seminars and workshops about healthy eating, physical exercise and vegetable gardening using social media and television, radio, and newspapers. This follows the same awareness and behavior change approach, albeit using more modern media, that has been used since the 1970s when it was first promoted by the South Pacific Commission (now the Secretariat of the Pacific Community), WHO, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and other agencies [3].

Although Samoas policy advocates a multi-sector approach to reducing NCDs, it offers no details of how the structural challenges referred to above might be overcome. This isthe responsibility of other ministries outside of the Ministry of Health. In addition, the recenthealth-sponsored television commercialsdo not mention the importance of reducing the consumption of sugar in their diet but focus only on performing physical exercise and eating vegetables.Shown on prime time TV, they are often followed by advertisements for sweet drinks and other sugary products by local manufacturers and retailers.Given the evident historical failure of behavior change approaches, there are questions to be asked about the degree to which behavior and personal choices are contributing factors to the development of overweight and obesity in Samoa and the rest of the world today.

Obesity is a political as well as a policy issue. If the Government of Samoa is to offset the rising cost of treating NCDs, it will have to adopt a more active multi-sectoral approach which could include laws, taxes, tariffs, and subsidies to increase consumption of fresh local food and decrease consumption of imported food.But such measures will be politically unpopular, especially with local importers, wholesalers, retailers, and manufacturers. Unless carefully applied, such measures may make food too expensive for public consumption.Local manufacturers produce beer, soft drinks, ice cream, and various snack foodsmade from ingredients imported via global supply chains. Local merchants import hundreds of similar inexpensive products.The food industry hadopposed any increase in taxes on their products, in the recent past.For instance, when levies were imposed on sugar-sweetened beverages, both the local producers and importers of soft drinks in Samoa argued that the consumers are the ones who would carry the burden of the increased taxes. They persistently lobbied for the removal of the excise taxes.In the past policy actions aiming to restrict the importing of foods thought to be harmful, such as turkey tails and mutton flaps, have been thwarted by the terms of international trade agreements [22].

Many new measures are needed.There should be a ban on television advertisements promoting sugar-sweetened products, especially those targeting children during prime time.Similarly, Samoa should draw on the successful measure used to reduce tobacco smoking by prohibiting the use of billboards to advertise sugar-sweetened products and prohibiting the sponsorship of sporting activities by manufacturers and importers of drinks and foods [22].There could also be a push to have sugar alternatives. Sugar-free drinks could be marketed over traditional sugar-laden drinks. The marketing campaign could include young people, such as sports stars, and community leaders. Having the sugar-free options available will allow for a massive reduction in total calories consumed.

Studies show that it is much easier to achieve significant health-related behavior changes, among children, both in eating and in physical activities [23]. Adult behavior is much more difficult to change, which is why community-based programs and social marketing campaigns advocating healthy eating have had limited success [23].Social marketing by the government should show children consuming fresh local foods. The policy should focus on targeting children as champions of health behavior changes in Samoa, with baseline and monitoring studies by the Ministry of Health to assess whether the objectives are being achieved, over at least five to 10 years. For example, screening a healthy cooking segment on television using inexpensive healthy food would be advantageous.This could possibly spark change. Consideration should also be given to prohibiting children under 10 years old from buying any form of sugar-sweetened-product, unless the child is accompanied by an adult, as in the Tobacco Control Act [24].This policy has been adopted by the state of Oaxaca in Mexico which banned the sale of soft drinks and high-calorie snack foods to children in 2020 [25]. Another measure could be to ban supermarkets from displaying sugar-sweetened products at the checkout points and the entrance to the supermarkets. Currently, in Samoa, sugar-sweetened products along with crisps and similar snack foods are strategically displayed on the racks either facing the entrance of the supermarkets, the checkout points, or on the checkout benches.A measure of this kind is to be implemented in the United Kingdom by mid-2022 to combat obesity [26]. Consumer education is needed so consumers understand the need to check food labeling and how to read them.A specific policy should require food labels to conform to international labeling standards.Food vendors should also be required to reveal the ingredients and energy value of the food they are offering in units such as grams or calories.In the United Kingdom, consumer education policies are now supported with instructions to restaurant owners to reduce the calories by 20% in popular takeaway foods.

To increase fresh local food production, since 2019 agriculture and fisheries project has aimed dependence on imported food and urbanization but seems to be making slow progress.In Samoas most populous region, the urbanizing Northwest Upolu, 34% of households were recorded as having no access to agricultural land compared to only 9.7%of households in rural Upolu and Savaii [27].However limited land need not be a barrier, there are several examples in the vicinity of Apia town of small-scale commercial vegetable growers using growing tunnels on small sections of land next to their houses.Measures to encourage the production of fresh local food as a small business could include subsidies of stock feed and other agricultural inputs and, in particular, increasing extension activities for food production at the community level.Home gardening for improved household nutrition has long been promoted for women and youth, but there has so far been little emphasis on teaching ways to cook vegetables, especially those vegetables which can be easily grown in Samoa but which were not a traditional dietary item.There is also a need for government to increase the minimum wage so that the people can afford to buy fresh local food.

Urban and infrastructure planning also needs attention.In the rapidly growing urban areas around the town of Apia and Northwest Upolu, there are no playgrounds, sports fields, or gymnasiums, and no footpaths for walking and jogging.Large sports fields, a gymnasium and a swimming pool, adjacent to the town were built for international sports events and are not accessible to most Samoans [28]. A beautiful walking path around Apia harbour has been constructed, mainly with aid funds, and mainly for the enjoyments of tourists and urban elites, but few roads in populous areas have footpaths. The building of footpaths around the islands would be an example of how the government could make a change to benefit people living in rural and urban Samoa. In addition, like in neighbouring countries such as New Zealand and Australia, perhaps also to include the construction ofbicycle lanes to encourage cycling (with helmets, etc. for safety) to and from school, to work, to church, and so forth. It is not only a visible form of exercise but also encouragingdaily exercise, fresh air, less pollution, less congestion on the roads, less parking spaces needed, and less resource intensive. The churches should advocate for and acquire spaces for sports such as volleyball and other games adjacent to church halls.In workplaces, there should be morning exercises and regular breaks during working hours to encourage moving around and require warders to use the stairs instead of lifts and offer tokens to reward efforts and monitoring to identify resisters.Another issue that could be tackled in social marketing efforts could be to challenge the role model provided by mainly morbidly obese leaders in the community, workplace, church, government and communities, to combat the notion that there is a positive correlation between obesity, power and high social status [29].

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Does Samoa Have Adequate Policies to Reduce Obesity and Obesity-Related Disease? - Cureus

Chance to Win $30 Walmart Gift Card by Participating in Fashion Social Media Influencer Study – University of Arkansas Newswire

Researchers are recruiting female undergraduate and graduate students on campus to understand individuals' opinions about the social media marketing efforts of fashion brands.

The survey will take approximately 15 minutes and consist of four parts asking your opinions and experiences about the social media marketing efforts of fashion brands. The last part will ask you to provide your general background information.

At the end of the survey, you may choose to participate in a drawing for a$30 Walmart gift card.Participation in the drawing is optional.

All responses are kept confidential to the extent allowed by law and university policy.This is a master's thesis researchapproved by the Institutional Review Board (Protocol# 2112375418).

Please contact the researchers if you have additional questions about the study.

Your participation is greatly appreciated!

Follow this link for the survey.

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Chance to Win $30 Walmart Gift Card by Participating in Fashion Social Media Influencer Study - University of Arkansas Newswire