Calgary teen Noah Epp, 15, and his father finished up a 1,050-kilometre bike ride from Calgary to Vancouver on Monday, Aug. 13, making their way through Burnaby on the last leg of their six-day journey.
The father-son team hopes to raise $250,000 for four organizations, including B.C. Children's Hospital, and raise awareness of pediatric cancer through their participation in the Ride For A Reason campaign.
Having been affected by cancer himself since the age of nine, Epp first biked 300 km from Calgary to Edmonton at that age, in memory of a family friend who had passed away after battling the disease.
As well as the B.C. Children's Hospital, funds raised through this event will also go to the following charities: Jamie's Preschool, Alberta Children's Hospital, and the Kids Cancer Care Foundation of Alberta.
To donate, visit www. providentfoundation.ca/ noahR4R.
Healing journeys
For anyone looking for an exotic and altruistic travel experience, a tour of India might be just your ticket.
National TV meteorologist Claire Martin will lead a small group of Canadians on a healing journey through southern India this fall, as a fundraiser for life-saving equipment at New Westminster's Royal Columbian Hospital.
Last year's trip raised $6,000 to help pay for a second digital breast imaging machine.
Highlights of this year's trip will include a visit to Cochin, a seaside town that has served as a portof-call for European and Asian explorers for centuries; the lush tea hills of Munnar; a tranquil houseboat tour of the Kerala backwaters or "Indian Bayou;" and time leftover to relax in the sunny beach-haven of Goa.
The tour runs from Oct. 4 to 17, and costs $4,795 per person, based on twin sharing.
Dangerous trend
Simon Fraser University clinical psychology graduate student Daniella Sieukaran has discovered a dangerous trend among post-secondary students in Canada known as "drunkorexia."
In a study of the longterm relationship between dieting and heavy drinking among young adults, Sieukaran found young women and men are increasingly restricting their diets in order to reserve calorie intake for consuming large quantities of alcohol.
The research shows this dangerous combination of alcohol abuse and dieting can lead to greater alcohol-related risk behaviour, including unprotected sex, and alcohol overdose.
Sieukaran, who is pursuing a combined MA/PhD, presented her research at the Canadian Psychological Association's 73rd annual convention in Halifax this summer.
For her study, she surveyed 227 students at York University between the ages of 17 and 21 on their dieting and drinking habits at the beginning and end of a fourmonth period.
She found that of three types of disordered eating - dieting, emotional eating, and eating in response to external stimuli rather than hunger - only dieting was associated with increased alcohol-associated risk behaviour.
"With the other types of disordered eating, there was actually a decrease in those types of behaviours," she says. "So there's a real connection between dieting and heavy drinking."
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