#Skinny girls: young girls' learning processes and health-related social media.

This paper provides in-depth knowledge into young girls' learning processes in relation to physical activity, diet/nutrition and body image. Data were generated from interviews with 49 girls (age 13-15) in England. The practical epistemological analysis technique was used to explore young people as both producers and consumers, or prosumers, of content and knowledge. The data illustrate that adolescent girls navigate two interrelated health-related paradoxes within publicly private spaces: (i) skinny fat and (ii) naturally fake. Skinny fat refers to how participation in social media represents a continuous struggle of becoming skinny, but at the same time not trying too hard to become too skinny. Naturally fake refers to how having a 'natural' look is highly valued, but equally, it is acceptable to be 'fake'. Overall, adolescent girls are competent users of social media, who are able to navigate the complexity of the medium and its contents. At the same time, the adolescent girls sometimes found themselves, unintentionally, exposed to risks (e.g. bullying or body dysmorphia), particularly when social media was experienced publicly in a temporal order, connected to the past or present, and without control of potential future effects and impacts. Relevant adults should acknowledge young people's vast competence of life on social media and further empower young people to self-regulate their learning through social media, and in ways that help them to learn from experiences about their health and bodies to shape future actions.

Physical activity as a health resource: a cross-sectional survey applying a salutogenic approach to what older adults consider meaningful in organised physical activity initiatives.

OBJECTIVES: Examine health resources that physically active older adults consider meaningful when participating in physical activity initiatives. Health resources are protective factors, including attitudes, knowledge, material factors or social support, that potentially enable people to understand and make sense of their lives or to cope with life stressors. DESIGN AND MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: A cross-sectional quantitative study was conducted with two questionnaires used to serve as a compiled 'ageing well' survey: the Salutogenic Physical Activity Health Resources Questionnaire (SPAHRQ) and the short form of the Sense of Coherence questionnaire, SOC-13. RESULTS: The study included 372 participants ranging from 60 to 96 years of age (mean age: 74.4 ± 7 years; 60% women). Social relations, positive energy, the habit of exercising and embodied satisfaction were considered important by more than 70% of the participants. Social relations were the most meaningful health resource for both men and women (89%). Women rated positive energy as a significantly more important consequence of their participation in physical activity than men (W 88%, M 72%; p = .001). The three health resources that were considered less important were capability in and about physical activity, self-worth and identity as an exercising person. Those who were more physically active considered social relations, self-worth and the habit of exercising to a higher extent. Participants with higher sense of coherence consider the habit of exercising to a greater extent to be important. CONCLUSIONS: Findings that social relations, positive energy, the habit of exercising and embodied satisfaction were considered important by more than 70% of the participants, can contribute to a wider understanding of health resources that older adults consider meaningful in their participation in organised physical activity initiatives.

Youth Perspectives on What Makes a Sports Club a Health-Promoting Setting-Viewed through a Salutogenic Settings-Based Lens.

Sports participation has the potential to contribute to young people's health. A prerequisite for young people to benefit from sports is that they stay in sports. Studies that consider both personal and contextual factors are needed to unpack the broader health-promoting potential of youth sports. The purpose of the study is to contribute to knowledge about the health-promoting potential of young people's participation in organized sports by exploring youth perspectives on what makes a sports club health-promoting with a focus on health resources that young people consider important for sports club participation. For this cross-sectional study a brief survey was conducted with 15-16 year old students (n = 123) at two schools in Sweden, asking three open-ended questions about their participation in sports. The study used a salutogenic theory-driven analysis in combination with statistical analysis. Five health resources that young people consider important for sports club participation are revealed. On an individual, more 'swimmer'-related level, these are personal well-being and social relations, including relationally meaningful activities, and on an organizational level, relating to the 'river', that sports clubs offer a supportive and well-functioning environment. For sports clubs to be health-promoting settings for young people and thus hopefully to reduce drop-out, we need a more sustainable approach emphasizing drop-in, drop-through, and drop-over as a continuous iterative process. We also need to consider the complexity of sports participation for young people, involving individual, organizational and environmental issues.

#Gymlad - young boys learning processes and health-related social media.

Recent systematic reviews identify that the factors mediating and/or moderating the relationship between social media and health outcomes are sparse. There have also been few attempts to analyse gender specific uses of social media. This paper investigated young boys health-related learning in relation to social media. Data were generated from class activities and interviews and from a large data set that included 1346 young people. The approach to the empirical data adopted was Practical Epistemology Analysis (PEA). The findings reveal two main purposes of young boys engagement with social media: (i) communicating with friends, and (ii) accessing health-related information. Irony and humour were central learning mechanisms used by young boys to participate within health-related social media, and in a way that enabled them to engage with, uphold, and handle health discourses associated with masculinity - such as being ripped - without fear of 'literal' peer ridicule and within a context of acceptable 'banter'. There was evidence that young people were critical users and generators of social media, who were clearly thinking through what they see, do, and use online. Hence, this paper provides a fresh evidence-based perspective on the potentially positive role of social media as a health-related learning resource. PEA is illustrated as a new methodological approach for investigating learning in the context of social media. The evidence generated can be used to inform future evaluations of social media use, the design of educative support for young people, and guidance and training for key stakeholders.

"I just remember rugby": Re-membering Physical Education as More Than a Sport.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this article was to investigate how boys communicate previous experiences of cultural norms in physical education (PE) practice. This was done by analyzing what boys (from a school in the United Kingdom) remember about PE 2 years after they last participated. Making use of autobiographical memory theory and John Dewey's notions of reactualization of experience and collateral learning, we discuss the results of the study in terms of re-membering. METHOD: The participants in this study were 20 boys from a secondary school in the United Kingdom. At the time of the study, 11 of the boys were aged 16 to 17 years old and 9 were aged 17 to 18 years old. These boys were interviewed using a semistructured approach to explore their autobiographical memories of PE. RESULTS: The overarching "logic" of memories of PE was sport. Almost all of the boys' articulated memories were of doing sports, albeit in various capacities. Beyond the main theme, the article positions the boys' recollections against established cultural norms of PE as a social practice and explores three subthemes: (a) just doing the game in a traditional curriculum though a multiactivity sport discourse; (b) learning the games in a technical sport discourse; and (c) learning beyond the game around an educational sport discourse. CONCLUSIONS: These boys reactualized memories of learning within an educational discourse, which suggests that what they learned goes beyond the simple consequence of participating.

Competing for ideal bodies: a study of exergames used as teaching aids in schools.

Since the development of the welfare state, the Swedish school subject Health and Physical Education (HPE) has been regarded as an important site for public health work, and still assumes a central role in promoting the health of the coming generation. A specific type of health intervention, promoted by researchers in recent years, is the use of so-called exergames. In some countries, these fitness games are used as teaching aids in physical education classes and can be seen as examples of how public health issues and popular culture are shaping HPE in schools. The aim of the study reported in this paper is to examine which messages about health and body are offered, and how these are expressed in some of the fitness games used as teaching aids in school. The results of the study highlight the dangers of using exergames in the teaching of HPE in schools. The messages communicated by the games have a number of potentially harmful consequences, particularly with regard to the creation of specific health and bodily norms based on a measurable ideal. The use of this tool in education is thus far from value free, and the problems that might be solved when using the games are not necessarily the ones that education should privilege.

The youth sports club as a health-promoting setting: an integrative review of research.

AIMS: The aims of this review is to compile and identify key issues in international research about youth sports clubs as health-promoting settings, and then discuss the results of the review in terms of a framework for the youth sports club as a health-promoting setting. METHODS: The framework guiding this review of research is the health-promoting settings approach introduced by the World Health Organization (WHO). The method used is the integrated review. Inclusion criteria were, first, that the studies concerned sports clubs for young people, not professional clubs; second, that it be a question of voluntary participation in some sort of ongoing organized athletics outside of the regular school curricula; third, that the studies consider issues about youth sports clubs in terms of health-promoting settings as described by WHO. The final sample for the review consists of 44 publications. RESULTS: The review shows that youth sports clubs have plentiful opportunities to be or become health-promoting settings; however this is not something that happens automatically. To do so, the club needs to include an emphasis on certain important elements in its strategies and daily practices. The youth sports club needs to be a supportive and healthy environment with activities designed for and adapted to the specific age-group or stage of development of the youth. CONCLUSIONS: To become a health-promoting setting, a youth sports club needs to take a comprehensive approach to its activities, aims, and purposes.