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Young people from refugee backgrounds have been repeatedly denied the ability to lead a life that they value. Community sport and leisure has been positioned as a tool to foster positive wellbeing experiences for these young people living in Western resettlement countries. Drawing on qualitative data from a Participatory Action Research project in London, England, we apply Nussbaum's Capabilities Approach to examine how the young people made sense of and negotiated their interconnecting capabilities through the sport and leisure programme. We examine three key interconnections between the capabilities of (a) life, bodily health and play; (b) affiliation and emotion and (c) bodily integrity and control over the environment. The findings are significant in ensuring sport and leisure provides opportunities for young people from refugee backgrounds to engage in positive wellbeing experiences and for enabling them and those supporting them to know and challenge harmful practices that may restrict capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social capital is often cited as shaping impacts of participatory arts, although the concept has not been systematically mapped in arts, health and wellbeing contexts. In wider health inequalities research, complex, differential, and sometimes negative impacts of social capital have been recognised. This paper maps of social capital concepts in qualitative research as part of the UK What Works for Wellbeing evidence review programme on culture, sport and wellbeing. Studies often cite positive impacts of bonding and, to a lesser extent, bridging social capital. However, reported challenges suggest the need for a critical approach. Forms of linking social capital, such as reframing and political engagement to address social divisions, are less often cited but may be important in participatory arts and wellbeing. Future research should further specify dimensions of social capital as well as their nuanced effects in arts, and wellbeing contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this special issue is to encourage critical theoretical and methodological reflection on the broad topic of leisure and wellbeing. Haworth ([27]) emphasised that while the relationship between leisure and positive or optimal experience was already an established field of enquiry, there had been little opportunity for debate about linking such research and policy agendas focused on the concept of wellbeing. Our contributors discuss issues connected to subjective wellbeing in leisure policy and practice, focusing on themes such as identity, leisure, happiness, spirituality, difference, and cultural diversity in the leisure sphere. The authors propose that adventure satisfies multiple and overlapping psychological needs for autonomy, competence, relatedness and beneficence, and the significance of this type of meaning-making has policy and practice implications beyond adventure recreation for schooling, public health and urban and rural planning. [Extracted from the article]

This paper seeks to synthesize aspects of feminism and figurational (process) sociology. Women's bodies are viewed as sites for studying interrelationships between power, gender, and identity construction. The behavioral and emotional rituals of women in a specific aerobics class are mapped out and located within the "exercise-body beautiful complex." We explore the way in which social constraints and individual self-control interweave in the rationalized management of women's bodies. The embodied experiences of these woman are intertwined with long term enabling and constraining features. Covertly disempowering, the "exercise-body beautiful complex" reinforces established standards of femininity. The realignment of dominant images of femininity is advocated in order to extend the liberating features of the figuration in question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Office workers spend most of their working day sitting, and prolonged sitting has been associated with increased risk of poor health. Standing in meetings has been proposed as a strategy by which to reduce workplace sitting but little is known about the standing experience. This study documented workers’ experiences of standing in normally seated meetings. Twenty-five participants (18+ years), recruited from three UK universities, volunteered to stand in 3 separate, seated meetings that they were already scheduled to attend. They were instructed to stand when and for however long they deemed appropriate, and gave semi-structured interviews after each meeting. Verbatim transcripts were analysed using Framework Analysis. Four themes, central to the experience of standing in meetings, were extracted: physical challenges to standing; implications of standing for meeting engagement; standing as norm violation; and standing as appropriation of power. Participants typically experienced some physical discomfort from prolonged standing, apparently due to choosing to stand for as long as possible, and noted practical difficulties of fully engaging in meetings while standing. Many participants experienced marked psychological discomfort due to concern at being seen to be violating a strong perceived sitting norm. While standing when leading the meeting was felt to confer a sense of power and control, when not leading the meeting participants felt uncomfortable at being misperceived to be challenging the authority of other attendees. These findings reveal important barriers to standing in normally-seated meetings, and suggest strategies for acclimatising to standing during meetings. Physical discomfort might be offset by building standing time slowly and incorporating more sit-stand transitions. Psychological discomfort may be lessened by notifying other attendees about intentions to stand. Organisational buy-in to promotional strategies for standing may be required to dispel perceptions of sitting norms, and to progress a wider workplace health and wellbeing agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A lack of physical activity and excessive sitting can contribute to poor physical health and wellbeing. The high percentage of the UK adult population in employment, and the prolonged sitting associated with desk-based office-work, make these workplaces an appropriate setting for interventions to reduce sedentary behaviour and increase physical activity. This pilot study aims to determine the effect of an office-based sit-stand workstation intervention, compared with usual desk use, on daily sitting, standing and physical activity, and to examine the factors that underlie sitting, standing and physical activity, within and outside, the workplace. Methods/Design: A randomised control trial (RCT) comparing the effects of a sit-stand workstation only and a multi-component sit-stand workstation intervention, with usual desk-based working practice (no sit-stand workstation) will be conducted with office workers across two organisations, over a 12 month period (N = 30). The multicomponent intervention will comprise organisational, environmental and individual elements. Objective data will be collected at baseline, and after 2-weeks, 3-months, 6-months and 12-months of the intervention. Objective measures of sitting, standing, and physical activity will be made concurrently (ActivPAL3™ and ActiGraph (GT3X+)). Activity diaries, ethnographic participant observation, and interviews with participants and key organisational personnel will be used to elicit understanding of the influence of organisational culture on sitting, standing and physical activity behaviour in the workplace. Discussion: This study will be the first long-term sit-stand workstation intervention study utilising an RCT design, and incorporating a comprehensive process evaluation. The study will generate an understanding of the factors that encourage and restrict successful implementation of sit-stand workstation interventions, and will help inform future occupational wellbeing policy and practice. Other strengths include the objective measurement of physical activity during both work and non-work hours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the current weight-centric approach to the promotion and practice of physical activity for health. We argue that examining the assumptions and belief systems that drive physical activity promotion may provide a foundation for considering and pursuing appropriate forms of social change in the policy, prescription and practice fields. Counter perspectives and critical voices offering alternative health paradigms are systematically marginalised or silenced in this discourse. We outline the significance of a public pedagogy approach in developing alternative ways of promoting, representing and experiencing physical activity beyond weight focused perspectives. We advocate that physical activity policy makers and practitioners, including those promoting a non weight-centric approach to health need to undertake ‘border crossing’ and work across ‘artificial’ institutional barriers. The paper discusses the principles of a non-weight based, cross-disciplinary Health at Every Size (HAES) approach. It presents a critical examination of the potentials of harnessing a HAES paradigm as an alternative to a weight-loss focused physical activity intervention. At the same time, it argues that even this approach needs to better address the complexities of weight rather than search for singular, universal responses to the problems of healthism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one which examines policy issues and access to inland water resources for outdoor leisure and recreation in Wales, another which discusses temporal changes in policy towards noisy sports in Great Britian, and a report on environmental impacts of leisure consumption in Norway.

This paper explores the connection between the promotion of heterosexual norms in women's fitness books written by or in the name of Jane Fonda during the 1980s and the commodification of women's fitness space in both the public and private spheres. The paper is set in the absence of overt discussions of normative heterosexuality in leisure studies and draws on critical heterosexual scholarship as well as the growing body of work theorising geographies of corporeality and heterosexuality. Using the principles of media discourse analysis, the paper identifies three overlapping characteristics of heterosexuality represented in Jane Fonda's fitness books, and embodied through the exercise regimes: respectable heterosexual desire, monogamous procreation and domesticity. The paper concludes that the promotion and prescription of exercise for women in the Jane Fonda workout books centred on the reproduction and embodiment of heterosexual corporeality. Set within an emerging commercial landscape of women's fitness in the 1980s, such exercise practices were significant in the legitimation and institutionalisation of heteronormativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the environmentalist agenda in fitness cultures. The article is an initial critical exploration and limited to an analysis of the key principles of political ecology and environmentalism and the concept of sustainability in understanding the emergence of an environmentalist agenda in fitness cultures marked by shades and grades of green consumerism. Author involvement in outdoor military fitness regimes and a series of visits to activity holiday centres and health/fitness spas in the UK all of which make some claim to being 'green', 'environmentally friendly', and/or 'natural', provided the empirical context for the discussion in this article. It argues for further research from the political ecological field, exploring human/non-human dynamics of the environment, to advance an understanding about which sports and fitness cultures get developed where, how and in whose interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reconsiders the relationships between feminist perspectives and the figurational/process-sociological perspective of Norbert Elias for understanding gender, sport and sport-related activities. The main aim of the article is to respond to CoIwell's claim that there are differences between feminist and figurational approaches to understanding and explaining gender that potentially negate the possibility of being a feminist and figurational sociologist at the same time. The paper makes a contribution to the wider discussions about the adequacy of Elias's work in understanding gender and sport, and the potential of blending feminist and figurational perspectives on sport and gender It introduces the principles underlying feminist and figurational approaches to sociology The key features of the ongoing debate about the differences between feminist and figurational approaches are briefly outlined. I reply to Colwell's criticisms of my work and revisit issues surrounding the role of values and evaluation in sociology Involved-detachment is introduced as a feminist interpretation of Elias's theory of ever changing balances of involvement-detachment The final part of the paper presents some reflections about working with involved-detachment in specific research on women's involvement in sport-related fitness activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Physical inactivity is a global public health priority. There are known health and well-being consequences of being inactive, and the benefits of being physically active are well established. However, there are persistent inequalities when it comes to how physically active people are, with disabled people, people living with long-term health conditions, and people residing in areas of socio-economic deprivation being particularly affected. Methods such as whole system approaches (WSAs), which are dynamic, multifaceted, and engage all relevant stakeholders, have gained momentum as an approach to address such complex public health problems. However, evidence relating to the implementation of WSAs to address physical inactivity is lacking. The aim of the Prevention and Enablement Model (PEM) was to take a whole system approach in Essex to encourage and support disabled people and/or individuals living with long-term health conditions to be more active, happier, and to live more independently. Methods: The aim of this study was to explore the enablers, challenges, and reflections associated with the process of designing and implementing the PEM. Semi-structured interviews (n = 12) were used to collect data from people involved in the PEM's design, implementation and/or delivery. Data was analysed using Braun and Clarke's reflexive thematic analysis. Results: Four themes were identified: (1) Working collaboratively: Specific enablers of time and space were identified as important in the planning and implementation of a WSA (2) Leadership and planning: Distributed and flexible leadership was identified as central to successful implementation (3) Re-orientating practice: Highlighted the transformative potential of a whole system approach and how it contrasts with conventional work practices, and (4) Reflection and learning: Informing ongoing refinements and further implementation of successful system change. Conclusions: These findings highlight the challenge and complexity of implementing a WSA that involves diverse stakeholders from across adult social care, the NHS, and the third sector. Several important enablers are identified, such as leadership and planning, and the challenges and discomfort that can arise whilst changing systems. Ongoing efforts are required to ensure that different elements of the system collaborate effectively to address inequalities in physical activity participation, through the implementation of a WSA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Community sport can potentially help to increase levels of physical activity and improve public health. Sport coaches have a role to play in designing and implementing community sport for health. To equip the community sport workforce with the knowledge and skills to design and deliver sport and empower inactive participants to take part, this study delivered a bespoke training package on public health and recruiting inactive people to community sport for sport coaches. We examined the views of sport coach participants about the training and their role in designing and delivering a complex community sport intervention for increasing physical activity and improving health.Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with paid full-time sport coaches (n = 15) and community sport managers and commissioners (n = 15) with expertise in sport coaching. Interviews were conducted by a skilled interviewer with in-depth understanding of community sport and sport coach training, transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis.Results: Three key themes were identified showing how the role of sport coaches can be maximised in designing and delivering community sport for physical activity and health outcomes, and in empowering participants to take part. The themes were: (1) training sport coaches in understanding public health, (2) public involvement in community sport for health, and (3) building collaborations between community sport and public health sectors.Conclusion: Training for sport coaches is required to develop understandings of public health and skills in targeting, recruiting and retaining inactive people to community sport. Public involvement in designing community sport is significant in empowering inactive people to take part. Ongoing knowledge exchange activities between the community sport and public health sector are also required in ensuring community sport can increase physical activity and improve public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A lack of physical activity and excessive sitting can contribute to poor physical health and wellbeing. The high percentage of the UK adult population in employment, and the prolonged sitting associated with desk-based office-work, make these workplaces an appropriate setting for interventions to reduce sedentary behaviour and increase physical activity. This pilot study aims to determine the effect of an office-based sit-stand workstation intervention, compared with usual desk use, on daily sitting, standing and physical activity, and to examine the factors that underlie sitting, standing and physical activity, within and outside, the workplace.Methods/design: A randomised control trial (RCT) comparing the effects of a sit-stand workstation only and a multi-component sit-stand workstation intervention, with usual desk-based working practice (no sit-stand workstation) will be conducted with office workers across two organisations, over a 12 month period (N = 30). The multicomponent intervention will comprise organisational, environmental and individual elements. Objective data will be collected at baseline, and after 2-weeks, 3-months, 6-months and 12-months of the intervention. Objective measures of sitting, standing, and physical activity will be made concurrently (ActivPAL3™ and ActiGraph (GT3X+)). Activity diaries, ethnographic participant observation, and interviews with participants and key organisational personnel will be used to elicit understanding of the influence of organisational culture on sitting, standing and physical activity behaviour in the workplace.Discussion: This study will be the first long-term sit-stand workstation intervention study utilising an RCT design, and incorporating a comprehensive process evaluation. The study will generate an understanding of the factors that encourage and restrict successful implementation of sit-stand workstation interventions, and will help inform future occupational wellbeing policy and practice. Other strengths include the objective measurement of physical activity during both work and non-work hours.Trail Registration: Clinicaltrials.gov identifier NCT02172599, 22nd June 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In June 2015, an expert consensus guidance statement was published recommending that office workers accumulate 2-4 h of standing and light activity daily and take regular breaks from prolonged sitting. This paper describes public responses to media coverage of the guidance, so as to understand public acceptability of the recommendations within the guidance, and perceptions of sitting and standing as health behaviours.Methods: UK news media websites that had reported on the sedentary workplace guidance statement, and permitted viewers to post comments responding to the story, were identified. 493 public comments, posted in a one-month period to one of six eligible news media websites, were thematically analysed.Results: Three themes were extracted: (1) challenges to the credibility of the sedentary workplace guidance; (2) challenges to the credibility of public health; and (3) the guidance as a spur to knowledge exchange. Challenges were made to the novelty of the guidance, the credibility of its authors, the strength of its evidence base, and its applicability to UK workplaces. Public health was commonly mistrusted and viewed as a tool for controlling the public, to serve a paternalistic agenda set by a conspiracy of stakeholders with hidden non-health interests. Knowledge exchanges focused on correcting others' misinterpretations, raising awareness of historical or scientific context, debating current workplace health policies, and sharing experiences around sitting and standing.Conclusions: The guidance provoked exchanges of health-promoting ideas among some, thus demonstrating the potential for sitting reduction messages to be translated into everyday contexts by lay champions. However, findings also demonstrated confusion, misunderstanding and misapprehension among some respondents about the health value of sitting and standing. Predominantly unfavourable, mistrusting responses reveal significant hostility towards efforts to displace workplace sitting with standing, and towards public health science more broadly. Concerns about the credibility and purpose of public health testify to the importance of public engagement in public health guidance development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LNX1 and LNX2 are E3 ubiquitin ligases that can interact with Numb — a key regulator of neurogenesis and neuronal differentiation. LNX1 can target Numb for proteasomal degradation, and Lnx mRNAs are prominently expressed in the nervous system, suggesting that LNX proteins play a role in neural development. This hypothesis remains unproven, however, largely because LNX proteins are present at very low levels in vivo . Here, we demonstrate expression of both LNX1 and LNX2 proteins in the brain for the first time. We clarify the cell-type specific expression of LNX isoforms in both the CNS and PNS, and identify a novel LNX1 isoform. Using luciferase reporter assays, we show that the 5′ untranslated region of the Lnx1 _ variant 2 mRNA, that generates the LNX1p70 isoform, strongly suppresses protein production. This effect is mediated in part by the presence of upstream open reading frames (uORFs), but also by a sequence element that decreases both mRNA levels and translational efficiency. By contrast, uORFs do not negatively regulate LNX1p80 or LNX2 expression. Instead, we find some evidence that protein turnover via proteasomal degradation may influence LNX1p80 levels in cells. These observations provide plausible explanations for the low levels of LNX1 proteins detected in vivo . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Office workers typically sit for most of the workday, which has been linked to physical and mental ill-health and premature death. This mixed-methods study sought to identify barriers and facilitators to reducing sitting and increasing standing among office workers who received an intervention prototype (the 'ReSiT [Reducing Sitting Time] Study'). The intervention comprised a sit-stand workstation and tailored advice to enhance motivation, capability and opportunity to displace sitting with standing.Methods: Twenty-nine UK university office workers (aged ≥18y, working ≥3 days per week, most time spent at a seated desk) participated in a 13-week uncontrolled study. They were initially monitored for one-week. In a subsequent face-to-face consultation, participants received sitting time feedback from a prior one-week monitoring period, and selected from a set of tailored sitting-reduction techniques. Quantitative data comprising sitting, standing and stepping time, which were objectively monitored for 7 consecutive days across three post-intervention timepoints, were descriptively analysed. Qualitative data, from semi-structured interviews conducted at 1, 6 and 12-weeks post-intervention, were thematically analysed.Results: Compared to baseline, mean sitting time decreased at weeks 1, 6 and 12 by 49.7mins, 118.2mins, and 109.7mins respectively. Despite prior concerns about colleagues' reactions to standing, many reported encouragement from others, and standing could be equally conducive to social interaction or creating private, personal space. Some perceived less cognitively-demanding tasks to be more conducive to standing, though some found standing offered a valued break from challenging tasks. Participants prioritised workload over sitting reduction and were more likely to stand after rather than during work task completion. Temporary context changes, such as holidays, threatened to derail newfound routines.Conclusions: Our findings emphasise the importance of understanding workers' mental representations of their work, and the social functions of sitting and standing in the workplace. Workplace intervention developers should incorporate a pre-intervention sitting time monitoring period, encourage workers to identify personally meaningful tasks and cues for standing, and build organisational support for sitting-reduction. We will use these insights to refine our intervention for self-administered delivery.Trial Registration: ISRCTN29395780 (registered 21 November 2016). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The concept of living with and beyond cancer is now emerging in policy and literature. Rather than viewing this notion simply as a linear timeline, developing an agreed understanding of the lived experience of people affected by cancer will aid the development of person-centred models of care.Methods: A systematic review was conducted. The review question was "What does the term 'living with and beyond cancer' mean to people affected by cancer?" The protocol for the review was preregistered in the PROSPERO database (PROSPERO CRD42017059860). All included studies were qualitative, so narrative synthesis was used to integrate descriptions and definitions of living with and beyond cancer into an empirically based conceptual framework.Results: Out of 2345 papers that were identified and 180 that were reviewed, a total of 73 papers were included. The synthesis yielded three interlinked themes: Adversity (realising cancer), Restoration (readjusting life with cancer), and Compatibility (reconciling cancer), resulting in the ARC framework.Conclusions: Three themes describe the experience of living with and beyond cancer: adversity, restoration, and compatibility. The ARC framework provides an empirically informed grounding for future research and practice in supportive cancer care for this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Desk-based workers engage in long periods of uninterrupted sitting time, which has been associated with morbidity and premature mortality. Previous workplace intervention trials have demonstrated the potential of providing sit-stand workstations, and of administering motivational behaviour change techniques, for reducing sitting time. Yet, few studies have combined these approaches or explored the acceptability of discrete sitting-reduction behaviour change strategies. This paper describes the rationale for a sitting-reduction intervention that combines sit-stand workstations with motivational techniques and procedures for a pilot study to explore the acceptability of core intervention components among university office workers. Methods: The intervention is based on a theory and evidence-based analysis of why office workers sit and how best to reduce sitting time. It seeks to enhance motivation and capability, as well as identify opportunities, required to reduce sitting time. Thirty office workers will participate in the pilot study. They will complete an initial awareness-raising monitoring and feedback task and subsequently receive a sit-stand workstation for a 12-week period. They will also select from a 'menu' of behaviour change techniques tailored to self-declared barriers to sitting reduction, effectively co-producing and personally tailoring their intervention. Interviews at 1, 6 and 12 weeks post-intervention will explore intervention acceptability. Discussion: To our knowledge, this will be the first study to explore direct feedback from office workers on the acceptability of discrete tailored sitting-reduction intervention components that they have received. Participant's choice of and reflections on intervention techniques will aid identification of strategies suitable for inclusion in the next iteration of the intervention, which will be delivered in a self-administered format to minimise resource burden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common age-related neurodegenerative disease and it is critical to develop models which recapitulate the pathogenic process including the effect of the ageing process. Although the pathogenesis of sporadic PD is unknown, the identification of the mendelian genetic factor PINK1 has provided new mechanistic insights. In order to investigate the role of PINK1 in Parkinson's disease, we studied PINK1 loss of function in human and primary mouse neurons. Using RNAi, we created stable PINK1 knockdown in human dopaminergic neurons differentiated from foetal ventral mesencephalon stem cells, as well as in an immortalised human neuroblastoma cell line. We sought to validate our findings in primary neurons derived from a transgenic PINK1 knockout mouse. For the first time we demonstrate an age dependent neurodegenerative phenotype in human and mouse neurons. PINK1 deficiency leads to reduced long-term viability in human neurons, which die via the mitochondrial apoptosis pathway. Human neurons lacking PINK1 demonstrate features of marked oxidative stress with widespread mitochondrial dysfunction and abnormal mitochondrial morphology. We report that PINK1 plays a neuroprotective role in the mitochondria of mammalian neurons, especially against stress such as staurosporine. In addition we provide evidence that cellular compensatory mechanisms such as mitochondrial biogenesis and upregulation of lysosomal degradation pathways occur in PINK1 deficiency. The phenotypic effects of PINK1 loss-offunction described here in mammalian neurons provides mechanistic insight into the age-related degeneration of nigral dopaminergic neurons seen in PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Sit-stand desk interventions have the potential to reduce workplace sedentary behaviour and improve employee health. However, the extent of sit-stand desk use varies between employees and in different organisational contexts. Framed by organisational cultural theory and product design theory, this study examined employees' lived experience of taking part in a workplace sit-stand desk intervention, to understand the processes influencing feasibility and acceptability.Methods: Participant observations and qualitative interviews were conducted with 15 employees from two office-based workplaces in the UK, as part of a process evaluation that ran alongside a pilot RCT of a workplace sit-stand desk intervention. Observational field notes and transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis.Results: Three themes related to the experience of using a sit-stand desk at work were generated: employees' relationship with their sit-stand desk; aspirations and outcomes related to employee health and productivity; and cultural norms and interpersonal relationships. The perceived usability of the desk varied depending on how employees interacted with the desk within their personal and organisational context. Employees reported that the perceived influence of the desk on their productivity levels shaped use of the desk; those who perceived that standing increased energy and alertness tended to stand more often. Sit-stand desks were voiced as being more acceptable than intervention strategies that involve leaving the desk, as productivity was conflated with being at the desk.Conclusions: The findings indicate a range of organisational, social-cultural and individual-level factors that shape the feasibility and acceptability of sit-stand desk use, and suggest strategies for improving employees' experiences of using a sit-stand desk at work, which might positively influence sedentary behaviour reduction and health.Trial Registration: Clinicaltrials.gov identifier NCT02172599, 22nd June 2014 (prospectively registered). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]