Latest news with #Gamilaroi
ABC News
26-05-2025
- Health
- ABC News
What you need to know about the hype around protein foods
From cottage cheese TikTok trends to protein-rich ice cream, it seems we're more conscious about protein than ever. It can make it hard to distinguish what sources of protein are good for us and how much we really need. Food and nutrition scientist Emma Beckett, based in Newcastle/Awabakal, believes the current protein obsession is being driven by gym culture, and an increased interest in weight loss and perimenopause/menopause health. "One of the challenges with the hype around protein is there's not really a very good distinction between protein-rich foods, protein supplements, or protein fortified foods," she says. Let's break it down: Tracy Hardy, a Gamilaroi woman who specialises in nutrition and dietetics for First Nations Australians, says focusing on protein alone in our diets could lead to a lack of macronutrient balance. The macronutrient balance is about what percentage of our energy should come from carbs, what percentage should come from fat, and what percentage should come from protein. "While protein is an important nutrient, these [diet] trends can risk overconsumption and risk neglecting adequate consumption of other macronutrients (fats and carbohydrates), micronutrients and fibre," Ms Hardy says. How much protein we should be consuming each day depends on several factors like age, activity level, and overall health. Eat for Health's nutrient calculator can help you work out what's right for you based on the national Recommended Dietary Guidelines (RDI). Our experts recommend choosing "food first" to meet your recommended intake. "The healthiest foods won't have a label to put that kind of claim on," Dr Beckett says. "Remembering the kind of staples of high protein foods as the first port of call, and then maybe adding the fortified foods and supplements, if you're struggling to get that balance with the foods first." Ms Hardy, from Sunshine Coast/Kabi Kabi land, says native bush foods, a traditional food source for First Nations peoples, can also be a great source of protein. "There is a variety of protein-rich bush foods, including (but not limited to) kangaroo, wallaby, magpie geese, fish, wattleseed, bush tomatoes, bush banana, and some legumes," Ms Hardy says. She says consumers can connect with First Nations bush food growers and sellers to properly identify and prepare bush foods so they are safe for consumption. "It's important to connect with local traditional custodians to learn the stories and sustainability of these foods." If you're looking to get more protein at mealtimes, our experts recommend: Our experts say there's a myth that you can't gain weight from eating too much protein. "You most definitely can," Dr Beckett says. "We need to be eating the protein and doing the weight-bearing exercise. Looking for trusted sources of information when it comes to protein is also recommended. "Don't go the influencer route, because you definitely don't know where that information is coming from," Dr Beckett says. Guidelines from the government's Eat for Health includes information on the recommended daily protein intake for your age, gender and whether you're pregnant or breastfeeding. This article contains general information only. You should consider obtaining independent professional advice in relation to your particular circumstances.
West Australian
25-05-2025
- General
- West Australian
Sorry Day healing for stolen generations survivors
Aunty Lorraine Peeters was taken from her family at the age of four. The Gamilaroi and Wailwan woman and her five sisters were forcibly removed from their home at Brewarrina, in outback NSW, and placed at Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Aboriginal Girls. Her two brothers were taken to Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home. The institutions were brutal and the children taken there - under accepted government policies - often experienced mistreatment and abuse. These children, removed during a period spanning from the 1910s until the 1970s, became known as the stolen generations. "For the next 10 years of my life I was taught another's culture, forced to forget my own, given a new identity," Aunty Lorraine told AAP. "The things they couldn't change were the colour of my skin, my identity and my spirit." For many stolen generations survivors, National Sorry Day, held each year on May 26, is an acknowledgement of their experiences and the continuing impact of forced removal from community and family. "It's an important day for us. It's a healing day for us," Aunty Lorraine said. "We all come together, share childhood memories, they're all our sisters, they're family." The date also marks the anniversary of the tabling of the Bringing Them Home report to parliament in 1997. The landmark report shared the history of stolen generations in Australia and made more than 50 recommendations to address the impacts on survivors. However, only a few of the recommendations had been fully implemented, according to a recent Healing Foundation report, despite the report being tabled nearly three decades ago. Foundation chief executive Shannan Dodson said supporting survivors through equitable redress, access to records, trauma-informed aged care and support for the organisations that represented them should be prioritised by all governments. "It's really important that we, as a matter of urgency, put that elevation of their needs at the top, as most survivors are now eligible for aged care," she said. "We've already lost too many survivors without them seeing some of these things and the justice they deserve." The 2025 Sorry Day theme of "we cannot wait another generation" spoke to that impetus, Ms Dodson said. The day will be marked with events across every state and territory. On Sunday, Coota Girls Aboriginal Corporation held a gathering in Sydney for survivors, their families and supporters. Aunty Lorraine's granddaughter Meagan Gerrard, who works as the corporation's project and communications manager, said the event grew each year. Ms Gerrard, a Wailwan and Gamilaroi woman, said the impact of the policies that led to the stolen generations were still being felt today. "Without public commemorative events such as this, there's less opportunity to educate and share the story," she said. "It's a really vital piece of healing and continued collective healing."
Perth Now
25-05-2025
- General
- Perth Now
Sorry Day healing for stolen generations survivors
Aunty Lorraine Peeters was taken from her family at the age of four. The Gamilaroi and Wailwan woman and her five sisters were forcibly removed from their home at Brewarrina, in outback NSW, and placed at Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Aboriginal Girls. Her two brothers were taken to Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home. The institutions were brutal and the children taken there - under accepted government policies - often experienced mistreatment and abuse. These children, removed during a period spanning from the 1910s until the 1970s, became known as the stolen generations. "For the next 10 years of my life I was taught another's culture, forced to forget my own, given a new identity," Aunty Lorraine told AAP. "The things they couldn't change were the colour of my skin, my identity and my spirit." For many stolen generations survivors, National Sorry Day, held each year on May 26, is an acknowledgement of their experiences and the continuing impact of forced removal from community and family. "It's an important day for us. It's a healing day for us," Aunty Lorraine said. "We all come together, share childhood memories, they're all our sisters, they're family." The date also marks the anniversary of the tabling of the Bringing Them Home report to parliament in 1997. The landmark report shared the history of stolen generations in Australia and made more than 50 recommendations to address the impacts on survivors. However, only a few of the recommendations had been fully implemented, according to a recent Healing Foundation report, despite the report being tabled nearly three decades ago. Foundation chief executive Shannan Dodson said supporting survivors through equitable redress, access to records, trauma-informed aged care and support for the organisations that represented them should be prioritised by all governments. "It's really important that we, as a matter of urgency, put that elevation of their needs at the top, as most survivors are now eligible for aged care," she said. "We've already lost too many survivors without them seeing some of these things and the justice they deserve." The 2025 Sorry Day theme of "we cannot wait another generation" spoke to that impetus, Ms Dodson said. The day will be marked with events across every state and territory. On Sunday, Coota Girls Aboriginal Corporation held a gathering in Sydney for survivors, their families and supporters. Aunty Lorraine's granddaughter Meagan Gerrard, who works as the corporation's project and communications manager, said the event grew each year. Ms Gerrard, a Wailwan and Gamilaroi woman, said the impact of the policies that led to the stolen generations were still being felt today. "Without public commemorative events such as this, there's less opportunity to educate and share the story," she said. "It's a really vital piece of healing and continued collective healing."
ABC News
18-05-2025
- Health
- ABC News
Healing from inherited trauma as a Stolen Generations descendant
An unexpected personal loss was the catalyst for Laura Jones to explore how her grief could be connected to traumatic events that happened before she was even born. The 23-year-old does not like to speak about the troubled time, but said with the support of her nan, her great-grandmother's younger sister Aunty Lorraine Peeters, she began to understand her pain could be connected to deeper generational wounds. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images of people who have died. "I'm a descendant of the Stolen Generations," Ms Jones said. "I'm going to assume most people can relate to the wound of abandonment. "But when actual abandonment goes back generations, that can still affect you now. "And unfortunately [that wound] will come up for you time and time again until you really face it." Inherited trauma is a phenomenon that's only gained acceptance in Western circles relatively recently through epigenetics, the study of what influences a person's gene expression. Everyone is born with DNA, a fixed set of genes derived from their biological parents. But now scientists are discovering factors like environment and experiences can influence how particular genes are switched on and off — and some of these patterns are passed on to offspring. However, for Gamilaroi Wailwan women such as Aunty Lorraine and Ms Jones, science is just catching up to something talked about among their families for decades. Aunty Lorraine was four years old when she and her five sisters were stolen from their parents to live at the Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Aboriginal Girls. At 15, she was sent to work as a servant for a white rural family. Now 86, her program Marumali, set up to support Stolen Generations' survivors and their families, helped Ms Jones navigate the mentally "dark space" she encountered in her grief at 19 years old. Part of her recovery involved reflecting on both her grandmother and great-grandmother being removed from all family and cultural connections and raised in institutions where they survived extreme abuse. "That was when I realised there was some stuff to work on here so that I don't carry it on to the next generation," Ms Jones said. Before the 1990s, Western science viewed intergenerational trauma through psychological and social lenses, attributing it to experiences such as exposure to a mother's stress in utero or learnt behaviour from traumatised caregivers. "Initially, it was thought that we were born with a clean slate," said geneticist and University of Queensland School of Biomedical Science professor Divya Mehta. "So as an embryo, at birth, all the epigenetic marks [of the parents] are erased and a child develops its own epigenetic marks." But advances in the last 30 years have provided evidence that some genetic expressions or "marks" on certain genes may be inherited. The most compelling research has been done on animals where it's easier to control the environment and interpret the data. One 2013 study conditioned male mice to fear a specific odour by receiving an electric shock when the smell was released. Their offspring showed sensitivity to the same odour despite never experiencing the shock themselves, and the effect persisted into a second generation. However, in humans, it's still a hotly debated topic. "It's very tricky to dissect environmental influence from genetic inherited traits," Professor Mehta said. "We still do not understand which [epigenetic] marks are passed on, and why these marks and not others." And it's not necessarily all bad news. On the flipside is potentially inherited resilience. "Is there a benefit in some marks being passed on?" Professor Mehta said. "For example, you'd hope the genes that make you respond better to stress would be passed on so the next generation can cope better." A positive environment, exercise and supportive social connections are all influences that have so far been measured as effective in returning epigenetic marks on stress genes to their baseline levels. "We see that people who are more isolated have higher rates of depression in general, whereas people with strong supports around them do much better," Professor Mehta said. "These are things we know at a psychological level or a symptomatic level, but now we're seeing the same thing on a biological level." Indigenous understanding of intergenerational trauma having a biological link predates Western science. Concepts like "trauma load" being passed through the mother to a foetus are shared through storytelling and oral tradition. "Most Aboriginal people just know it," Aunty Lorraine said. "If I don't heal in my generation, it's automatically transferred on to my children. "They also understand the mental health system doesn't fit trauma. It only diagnoses the behaviours of trauma, not the real core." A cornerstone of her own journey and what she urges in others as "the ultimate in healing" is to return to country, the geographical land of one's ancestors. "It's where all our spirits lie. We want to be able to come back to country whenever the need is there," Aunty Lorraine said. Now living in Queensland, Aunty Lorraine recently travelled 900 kilometres to the Beemunnel Reserve near Warren in western New South Wales where she and her sisters were born. Scores of relatives from across Australia joined her for the second family reunion in 10 years. After a morning of celebrations, the afternoon was spent remembering those who had died, with a ceremony that "laid their spirits to rest" in the Beemunnel. "I'm only the vehicle of the spirit I've been given. So the vehicle can be buried anywhere, but you must take my spirit home," Aunty Lorraine said, standing beneath the tree under which she was born. Tears rolled down Tammy Wright's face as she called out names of relatives who had "passed into the Dreamtime" while shovelling soil onto a kurrajong tree planted in their honour. "It's very hard to describe [connection to country] as an Aboriginal person," she said. "My church is Mother Earth — you're standing on it." The 56-year-old Gamilaroi Wailwan woman is Aunty Lorraine's niece. She made an eight-hour trip to the reunion from Kempsey on the NSW Mid North Coast with her grandkids, aged 8 and 5. "They notice a huge difference in the land. The ground's red, the trees are different. "And just for them to see it … it's very emotional for me." Ms Wright has worked for decades with people to address intergenerational trauma, including running cultural camps with Indigenous prisoners in the early 2000s. "Eight out of 10 [of those inmates] were impacted from the Stolen Generations," she said. These days Ms Wright works with more children and has seen how identity and culture can help support them better with triggers they might be experiencing. For Ms Jones, who travelled from Sydney, the reunion was "bittersweet" because it "highlighted the immense loss of connection, culture, and kin we once had". "While many believe that this was hundreds of years ago, for our family, the Beemunnel was our home only two and three generations ago." Western research on intergenerational trauma has tended to focus on cohorts of people with high stress exposure, such as combat veterans and paramedics. Now, for the first time, the Australian government is backing a study led by UNSW Sydney scientia professor Jill Bennett into its significance among First Nations people with a $2.8 million grant. Professor Mehta is heading up the epigenetics component of the Transforming Trauma project with the aim of helping to develop tools to alleviate trauma's impact. "I think the key thing here with epigenetics is that it is dynamic in nature. The DNA code is fixed — you can't do anything about it. But the activity part of it, the epigenetic expression is changeable," she said. "It shows us why our DNA is not our destiny. "You talk to families who have gone through huge amounts of trauma. "To think, 'Oh, it doesn't end with me,' that's very tricky. "So I keep bringing it back to the dynamic nature of what we're looking at and why we're looking at the environment and lifestyle factors that can change epigenetics." When asked about such research, Aunty Lorraine was circumspect about it helping First Nations people, but hoped it would lead to more recognition. "Intergenerational trauma is not something you can see. It's a legacy First Nations people are carrying," she said. "And it's not only the Stolen Generations — it's day one of settlement, being moved off country, having language and culture taken, and the grief of it all — that's all part of the trauma load. "But non-First Nations people don't acknowledge it. People acknowledge there's a gap, but they don't understand what that gap is." Support for Indigenous Australians is available by contacting the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander crisis support line 13YARN on 13 92 76.
ABC News
12-05-2025
- General
- ABC News
Toukley's Kooloora Preschool revives endangered Darkinjung Aboriginal language
Students at a NSW Central Coast preschool start their day talking about their feelings in Darkinjung, the local Aboriginal language. Darkinjung is the predominant First Nations group in the region, but the language became endangered fairly quickly after colonisation due to its proximity to Sydney. "It's taken a lot of research, a lot of hard work from people that have come before me to get those words so we can start learning them again," preschool educational leader Sharon Buck said. Ms Buck is a proud Gamilaroi woman who has lived and worked on Darkinjung country her whole life. Kooloora is a targeted Aboriginal preschool attached to Toukley Public School. About 75 per cent of students identify as Aboriginal, but Ms Buck said all families appreciated the opportunity to learn language and culture. Amber Clenton's daughter, Islah, has attended Kooloora since the beginning of the year. She has started bringing the language and songs home. "Our whole family is Aboriginal, so we love to learn the language," Ms Clenton said. "It's one of the best things … sharing culture and opening it up to everyone as well, so everyone else can learn something if they want to. It's great." She said it was an opportunity she was not afforded as a child. "It's hard for me to try and get more information on my family because no-one wants to share it, but I'm glad being in here will help her learn," Ms Clenton said. Arliah James is one of Kooloora's non-Aboriginal students. Her mother, Kelsey, said she was benefiting from the Darkinjung language program. "I just love how this school incorporates it [culture] a lot and it is not getting forgotten," Ms James said. "I didn't get to learn much about it, and it's lovely to see that she's embracing it and they're enjoying it at the same time." Bronwyn Chambers, who is a community elder and former chair of the Darkinjung Language Centre, said it was encouraging to see a new generation carrying on traditions that were almost lost. "Children are our future in speaking language," she said. "I'm hoping that one day our Darkinjung language might be our people's first language again. "It's their right to have their language and it's been taken away from us, and now it's the opportunity to give language back, not just to Darkinjung people but to all Aboriginal people who live here on the Central Coast." Ms Buck's commitment to restoring language has resulted in the preschool earning the highest rating achievable for an early childhood education and care service. The rating of excellent, from the Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority, is an honour Kooloora shares with just 10 other facilities in NSW. "It validates that the service is a leader in our community and for other early childhood services, and that our initiatives are recognised and valued as making a difference for children and families," Ms Buck said. The preschool is working with other local schools to share the localised Aboriginal curriculum.
