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This book contains the most recent papers problematizing the notions of health, vulnerability, and well-being for individuals and their environment. Organized in 5 sections the book takes into consideration the critical and phenomenological history of well-being and health, their technological manipulation, how these notions connect with the body and the specific vulnerability of the human being, and what responsible direction we can take to improve people's relation to themselves, to other living beings and their environment. In order to address the issue of the vulnerability of the human world and how to respond to its specific challenges, the contributions in this book discuss the topic from a broad range of perspectives, including anthropological, psychological, sociological, philosophical, and environmental.

This book offers a focused and detailed insight into the health and wellbeing of prison staff, specifically focussing on prison leaders and managers. The authors bring together expertise from psychology, health, law, and criminology, to present a unique multidisciplinary examination of health and wellbeing based on interviews with Prison Governors'Association members. Examining how the participants described their health and wellbeing at work and at home, the authors reveal dysfunctional culture, disenchantment and disengagement, the heavy weight of expectations and high levels of professional uncertainty relating to the future. It argues that more governor grade specific and arguably mandated support is needed. Recommendations from the book will contribute to improving health and wellbeing amongst the governor work force, feeding into positive outcomes in relation to staff retention and prison expansion challenges.

Using a multidisciplinary and intersectional approach, this book explores the social factors that influence the ways in which societal norms police fat bodies. Chapters examine the racist and colonial constructions of Western beauty norms as well as the evolution of anti-fat bias and fat liberation, before delving into the relationship between social media and body size activism, with a particular emphasis on social media companies censoring fat people. The authors draw on first-person narratives of artists, activists, and fat social media users to unpack how, these mostly women, have used their bodies to transform the negative social perceptions of fat people. This book will be of interest to scholars and students in Sociology, Gender Studies, History, and Media Studies who research body size activism and beauty norms.

This book is a deep dive into the largely unexplored space of BBW “bashes”—multi-day gatherings of fat women and their admirers. Using a range of feminist theories of embodiment and affect, the project is guided by autoethnography and in-depth interviews with twelve participants. Participant experiences are first analyzed with a key focus on experiences that cause grief and disenfranchisement; subsequently, the book looks at experiences that may be radical or revelatory. The book does not seek to either villainize or valorize BBW spaces but instead sheds a bright light on the experience of this cultural subspace and all it may offer to analyses of fat life.

Caribbean countries have had to navigate multiple crises, which have tested their collective resolve through time. In this regard, the region's landscape has been shaped by an interplay of vulnerability and resilience which has brought to the fore possibilities and contradictions. It is within this context that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic must be considered. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on COVID-19 and the Caribbean, Volume 2: Society, Education and Human Behaviour provides a comprehensive, multi- and interdisciplinary assessment of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, using the Caribbean as the site of enquiry. The edited collection mobilises critical perspectives brought to bear on research produced within and beyond the boundaries and boundedness of conventional academic disciplinary divides, in response to the multi-dimensional crises of our time. This volume is divided into four (4) parts consisting of twenty-three (23) chapters and weaves together fourbroad thematic strands: COVID-19 and Caribbean Society; COVID-19 Religion and Rights; Psycho-social Impacts of COVID-19; and Education, Innovation, and Technology. Authors working within and across the human, social, physical and life sciences consider the myriad effects of the health crisis in the region, interrogating these experiences from the granular to macro level, utilising inter and multidisciplinary lenses. Collectively, the chapters which constitute Volume II expose the fault lines in Caribbean societies, which are deeply rooted in the region's history and delineate the precise ways in which the pandemic has transformed lives and livelihoods in the region. The culmination of this collection offers a reimagining of our Caribbean contemporary futures in the hope of finding home-grown solutions, avenues and possibilities.

This book uncovers the multiple layers of challenges posed to achieve sustainable human health and improves the understanding of interactive areas set by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (1) no poverty, (2) zero hunger, (3) good health and wellbeing, (6) clean water and sanitation, and (11) sustainable cities and communities. The book focuses on conceptual understanding, food, nutrition, lifestyle, and their integration to reinforce the ideas of holistic health principles.'The most important drivers of sustainable health are food, nutrition, and lifestyle. Healthy food is a basic need of human beings. In under-developed regions, people are underweight and facing malnutrition, with a prevalence of deficiency diseases due to low intake of micro-nutrients such as vitamin A, iodine, and protein among others. A good diet as well as lifestyle has a tremendous bearing on a person's health, emotional stability, and enthusiasm for life. The global coronavirus pandemic has brought unimaginable devastation and hardship in all corners of the globe, questioning the existing healthcare services, health policies, and health planning across the developed and developing countries. It has also exposed the lacunae in understanding health, the base of human happiness. The global community needs to gravely ponder the health issues we are facing and explore sustainable solutions for health recovery and the wellbeing of humanity.

This new edition of Health Studies provides an authoritative and contemporary introduction to the study of health. With chapters including epidemiology, psychology, human and environmental geography, and anthropology, it is the only book to explore in one volume all of the core disciplines that contribute to understanding health. It illustrates how the complexity of health problems such as obesity should be viewed with an interdisciplinary perspective. Each chapter explains the disciplinary approach and then its theoretical and research approaches with examples. A highlight of this 4th edition is a new chapter on sports and exercise science providing another scientific chapter on physiology which is applied and will be of interest to all those thinking of employment in sports or leisure industry.The book is accessible and learner-centered and each chapter features: a connections feature that links the chapters together; learning tasks; questions for reflection and debate; examples to illustrate concepts, methodologies and to explore contemporary issues; a case study on obesity, food and diet.Comprehensive, accessible and written by leading experts in the different fields, this is the introductory text for all students of health studies.

Eine Inter•-Diagnose stellt für die meisten Eltern eine Zäsur im Leben dar. Die gesellschaftliche und körperliche Bedeutung ist nicht in ihrem Erfahrungswissen verankert. Dieses Buch geht dem Erleben der Eltern von intergeschlechtlichen Kindern nach und zeichnet deren Prozess der Auseinandersetzung, Wissensaneignung und Handlungsermächtigung nach. Überlegungen zur Naturalisierung von Geschlecht und zur Wirklichkeitskrise sind dabei zentral. Die Autorin verknüpft zudem das Erleben mit den aktuellen gesellschaftlichen Verhältnissen und bietet so Erkenntnisse zur Krisenbewältigung an.

Nicht zuletzt durch die Diskussion im Kontext international vergleichender Schulleistungsuntersuchungen hat, wenn heute über Schulbildung gesprochen wird, die Bedeutung bisher kaum institutionalisierter, nur selten curricularisier­ ter und häufig nicht-standardisierter Bildungsprozesse zugenommen. Die För­ derung sozialer und allgemeiner Lebenskompetenzen, das soziale Lernen, Grundbildungs- und Literacy-Konzeptionen sowie die Fähigkeit zu selbstge­ steuertem und selbstreguliertem Lernen weisen in die gleiche Richtung. Die Vermittlung eines Grundgerüsts von individuellen Kompetenzen, das die reine Fachbildung ergänzt und dadurch eigentlich erst ermöglicht, Spezialwissen praktisch anwendbar zu machen. In Bildungsinstitutionen sollen',ife skills'erworben werden, die dem in der Ökonomie verwendeten Verständnis von'soft skills'sehr ähnlich werden. Flexible Kompetenzen, um in flexibilisierten Wis­ sensfeldern flexibel handlungsfähig zu sein. Auch wenn Bildungserwerbsprozesse biografischimmer wieder verlängert werden, bildet somit das'non scholae, sed vitae discimus'-Diktum noch stär­ ker als in der Vergangenheit unsere heutige Bildungsrealität ab. Das Präventi­ onsdilemma berührt daher keineswegs ein vielleicht nur randständiges Detail der aktuellen Bildungsreformdebatte. Tatsächlich wird mit dem Gesamtkom­ plex soziale Ungleichheit und schulische Kompetenzförderung der Versuch unternommen, an eine ursprüngliche Kernthematik der deutschsprachigen Bil­ dungsforschung anzuschließen. Hatte das Bemühen darum, mit der Institution Schule eines der zentralen Stellgleise der Ungleichheitsreproduktion zu unter­ suchen, noch in den 1970er Jahren seinen Höhepunkt erfahren, nahm dieses Erkenntnisinteresse in der Folgezeit deutlich ab. Das Erlahmen aller For­ schungstätigkeit erfolgte aber, wie wir heute wissen, kontrafaktisch. Die Schule hat ihre tragende Rolle im Reproduktionsprozess sozialer Ungleichheit keines­ falls abgegeben.

Do liminal embodied experiences such as illness, death and dying affect literary form? In recent years, the concept of embodiment has been theorized from various perspectives. Gender studies have been concerned with the cultural implications of embodiment, arguing to move away from viewing the body as a prediscursive phenomenon to regarding it as an acculturated body. Age studies have extended this view to the embodied experience of ageing, while drawing attention to the ways in which the ageing body, through its materiality and plasticity, restricts the possibilities of (de)constructing subjectivity. These current debates on embodiment find a strong counterpart in literary representation. The contributions to this anthology investigate how and to what extend physical borderline experiences affect literary form.

This book provides a unique and innovative perspective on the controversial phenomenon of ‘stem cell tourism'. A growing number of patients are embarking on stem cell treatments that are clinically unproven and yet available in clinics and hospitals around the world. The authors offer a cutting-edge multi-dimensional perspective on this complex and rapidly changing phenomenon, including an analysis of the experiences of those who have undertaken or have contemplated undertaking a stem cell treatment, as well as examination of the views of those who undertake research or advise on or provide stem cell treatments. Developing the concept of ‘the political economy of hope', and referencing case studies of the stem cell treatment market in China, Germany, and Australia, this book argues for a reframing of ‘stem cell tourism'to understand why patients and families pursue these treatments and whether authorities'concerns are justified and whether their responses are appropriate and proportionate to the alleged risks.

Protecting ourselves against the risks associated with modern technologies has emerged as a major public concern throughout the industrialized world. Searching for Safety is unique in its exposition of a theory that explains how and why risk taking makes life safer and exposes the high risk of avoiding change. The book covers a wide range, including how the human body, as well as plants, animals, and insects, cope with danger. Wildavsky asks whether piling on safety measures actually improves safety. While he agrees that society should sometimes try to prevent large-scale harm, he explains why a strategy of resilience—learning from error how to bounce back in better shape—is usually better. His intention is to shift the debate about risk from passive prevention of harm to an active search for safety. This book will be of special interest to those concerned with risk involving technology, health, safety, environmental protection, regulation, and more.

Health status and the experience of working in health care roles are both strongly shaped by gender and, although there have been attempts to incorporate'gender awareness'in both health and employment policies, the significance of gender in these areas continues to be marginalised within public debates and academic discourses. Taking a social constructionist perspective, Watts considers the ways in which gender impacts upon health in all its elements including access, technology, professionalisation, health promotion and health as an important sector of the labour market. She discusses gender as a developing and diversified category, exploring ideas about masculinity and the fluidity of gender boundaries in determining individual identity. Chapters that follow discuss men's and women's health; ideology of gender and health, specifically exploring different social norms and ideas about male and female health and the dominant ideological association between femaleness and caring; working for health with particular focus on the gendered interplay of caring and curing roles; technology and changes to gender, health and healthcare; health promotion as a gendered activity and, finally, the importance of introducing an intersectional approach beyond gender to articulate a deeper understanding of health in a postmodern context. The concluding chapter draws together these themes to underscore the importance of placing gender at the centre of health and health care delivery to fully take account of both the different life and health experiences of men and women and the gendered dimensions of working in health care.