According to the latest Statistics Canada report on household demographics, the nuclear family is no longer the norm. But are Italians, one of the country's largest ethnic groups, rethinking family composition in step with other Canadians? If so, how do these changes interplay with cultural identity?

Many different organizations and health experts have purposed various solutions to solve the western world's obesity epidemic. But the underlying problem to the obesity epidemic is the current population's lack of connectivity to the soil, the environment and the food supply. If we can reconnect our current population with the food supply and the community, we will create a healthier and brighter future for generations to come.

This week I am obsessed with all things old school. Specifically, I mean the popularity of, recurring presence of and constant reference to all things "old school." It's so over used that it's almost (as my kids would say) "over," but we keep hearing the phrase (as in "kickin' it old school"). Here are five examples of old school being new again that I noticed this week.

Jacob Schwartz is a lucky 15-year-old boy. Though he was diagnosed at birth with Canavan disease, a usually fatal illness that targets the central nervous system virtually robbing its victims of most basic human functions such as sight, speech, cognitive abilities and mobility, Jacob is still a lucky boy.

Maskarm K. Haile has called the world her "open university." She has traveled the world fulfilling a childhood dream of discovering something "that is bigger than life itself." She experienced the world by traveling as a "couch-surfer." She has discovered that most foreign strangers are no different from the neighbours that are often found in her diverse and multicultural Montreal neighborhood.

This year, when I was invited to join World Neighbors on a physically challenging trip to visit the forgotten people in the poorest regions of Peru, I admit, I was very hesitant. Then I realized I was being offered an opportunity to test my physical resilience after literally being unable to even walk up a short flight of stairs. The only answer was "Yes." Always my philosophy.

Have you ever used headphones that were turned up way too loud? If you were wearing them all the time, how hard do you think it would be for you to be able to you to concentrate on other things? Have conversations? Ask questions like these to help kids understand what autism's like.