Journal Of Physical Activity & Health[JOURNAL]
Sun
34 papers
Sharing stories: Experiences of sharing personal stories and creating a collective story about living with advanced cancer.
Gärtner HS, Blix BH, Raunkiær M … +1 more , Timm H
Health (London) · 2026 Jun · PMID 42359575 · Publisher ↗
Narratives play a crucial role in shaping individual and collective identities, also in the context of illness. This study explored the experiences of individuals with advanced cancer who participated in a narrative cour...
Narratives play a crucial role in shaping individual and collective identities, also in the context of illness. This study explored the experiences of individuals with advanced cancer who participated in a narrative course at a Danish research clinic in 2022. This course included a collective storytelling exercise where participants shared personal illness narratives that eventually were integrated into a collective story document. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork including participant observations, individual interviews, focus groups, and the collective story documents, this study explores two key research questions: What do collective stories reveal about participants' experiences of living with advanced cancer? How do participants experience the process and significance of creating collective stories, both within the course setting and beyond? The findings reveal that the collective stories predominantly centered on themes of suffering and loss, including physical, emotional, and social challenges. Sharing and listening to these stories in common fostered a sense of community among participants, alleviating feelings of loneliness and validating their experiences. However, attempts to share the collective stories outside the course setting often proved challenging, highlighting the unique role of the course as a supportive "local moral world."The study underscores the potential of collective storytelling in rehabilitation and palliative care, while emphasizing the influence of broader cultural and social narratives on illness experiences.
Adolescent girls as local active citizens: Developing a sense of belonging to local parks through 'walk and talk' and navigating local gender politics.
Istiko SN, Seims A, Fargin M … +5 more , Barber S, Make Space for Girls, Crowther J, Rafiq A, Sheard L
Health (London) · 2026 Mar · PMID 41863057 · Publisher ↗
Parks offer opportunities for adolescent girls to be physically active, yet many are excluded from these spaces, particularly those who are affected by intersecting inequalities. This paper draws from six focus groups wi...
Parks offer opportunities for adolescent girls to be physically active, yet many are excluded from these spaces, particularly those who are affected by intersecting inequalities. This paper draws from six focus groups with 33 adolescent girls in Bradford, United Kingdom, to explore the relationship between their sense of belonging in their local parks and their engagement with physical activity (PA) in these spaces. Drawing on Yuval-Davis' sociological understanding of citizenship, we highlight local parks as a symbol of belonging to their local communities, and 'walk and talk' as a form of local park-based PA practice that also enhances their sense of belonging (citizenship) to their local communities while also reducing stress. Male domination of local parks is perceived as a barrier to use these spaces for PA, which is also influenced by high level deprivation. As a response, many develop experiential knowledge and strategies that demonstrate their local active citizenship. Moving forward, we call for a combined strategy to leverage local parks for adolescent girls affected by intersecting inequalities to do PA: first, a better park and city design that is attuned to their walking experiences and safety, and; second, re-investment in youth organisations to support their development of citizenship competencies through local park-based PA interventions.
'Madness' after the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina - challenging dominant understandings of distress.
Maglajlic RA, Vejzagić H, Palata J … +1 more , Mills C
Health (London) · 2024 Mar · PMID 36476072 · Full text
This article reports on the findings from a small-scale co-produced qualitative study on experiences of distress caused by the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Inspired by the emerging interdisciplinary field of Mad...
This article reports on the findings from a small-scale co-produced qualitative study on experiences of distress caused by the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Inspired by the emerging interdisciplinary field of Mad Studies, the study is novel and unique in two ways. First, it prioritises social understanding and interpretation of madness and distress. Second, an emphasis is placed on experiential knowledge. Beyond interviews with 20 people who experienced distress due to political conflict, this included contextualisation of the study in the knowledge generated through survivor research and within the field of Mad Studies. Study findings highlight the social causes and consequences of distress caused by conflict, such as war-related violence, gender-based violence, experiences of poverty and corruption. Participants stressed the importance of safety and support within their own home, mutual and supportive relationships with their families, friends, other people who experienced distress, the broader community and opportunities to do everyday activities they enjoy. In terms of professional support, the findings suggest that poverty alleviation and protection of people's right to self-determination through access to human rights advocacy and representation may be as relevant as non-coercive community-based services. This indicates that support for distress caused by political conflict need not be different from any other support for people who experience distress. Emphasis should be placed on survivor-run initiatives and non-coercive, community-based support which addresses social causes of distress and enables people to exercise self-determination.
On care infrastructures and health practices: How people in health promotion programmes try to change their everyday life.
Miele F
Health (London) · 2023 Nov · PMID 35586870 · Publisher ↗
This paper contributes to challenging common behavioural or cognitive explanations for health and wellbeing outcomes, focussing on social practices through which people, with the help of other subjects, try to improve th...
This paper contributes to challenging common behavioural or cognitive explanations for health and wellbeing outcomes, focussing on social practices through which people, with the help of other subjects, try to improve their health conditions. To renew the debate about health promotion, my work is placed at the intersection between the sociology of health and illness and science and technology studies, adopting the concepts of care infrastructures and health practices that are introduced in the next section. With this goal, my paper draws on a qualitative study concerning a Workplace Health Promotion programme aimed at reducing the risks of Type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases among sedentary workers. The findings illustrate how a care infrastructure in the field of health promotion is designed, put to work, repaired and 'put aside' in relation to two health practices ('doing physical activity' and 'following the Mediterranean diet'). Drawing on the presented case, I show how the change in daily habits in the fields of nutrition and physical activity is a collective effort involving different spheres of life, connecting human and non-human elements and bringing out affective intensities among them.
Bodies of concern? A qualitative exploration of eating, moving and embodiment in young mothers.
Lucas G, Olander EK, Salmon D
Health (London) · 2023 Jul · PMID 34841953 · Full text
In some countries, including the United Kingdom, young mothers' pregnant and postnatal bodies remain an area of concern for policy and practice, with interventions developed to support improved health behaviours includin...
In some countries, including the United Kingdom, young mothers' pregnant and postnatal bodies remain an area of concern for policy and practice, with interventions developed to support improved health behaviours including diet and physical activity. This article explores what young women themselves think and feel about eating and moving during and after pregnancy. Semi-structured interviews with 11 young mothers were conducted within two voluntary organisations. Data were analysed using thematic analysis with the theoretical lens of embodiment, which provided an understanding of how young women's eating and moving habits related to how they felt about their bodies in the world. Four themes situated in different experiences of being and having a body were identified: pregnant body, emotional body, social body and surveilled body. Stress and low mood impacted eating habits as young women responded to complex circumstances and perceived judgement about their lives. Food choices were influenced by financial constraints and shaped by the spaces and places in which young women lived. Whilst young women were busy moving in their day-to-day lives, they rarely had the resources to take part in other physical activity. Holistic approaches that focus on how women feel about their lives and bodies and ask them where they need support are required from professionals. Interventions that address the structural influences on poor diet and inequalities in physical activity participation are necessary to underpin this. Approaches that over-focus on the achievement of individual health behaviours may fail to improve long-term health and risk reinforcing young women's disadvantage.
"That chart ain't for us": How Black women understand "obesity," health, and physical activity.
Justin TA, Jette S
Health (London) · 2022 Sep · PMID 34523360 · Publisher ↗
In this article, we use qualitative methodology to explore how eight physically active Black women, who self-identify as "obese," understand and experience health and physical activity, as well as how they position thems...
In this article, we use qualitative methodology to explore how eight physically active Black women, who self-identify as "obese," understand and experience health and physical activity, as well as how they position themselves in relation to discourses pertaining to "obesity" and Black femininity. Drawing on Foucauldian-informed critical obesity scholarship and Black feminist thought, we explore the ways in which physically active Black women concurrently resist, reproduce, and navigate racialized and gendered obesity discourse. Our findings advance critical obesity scholarship as we indicate that participants simultaneously adapt to, negotiate, and resist obesity discourse by re-defining health, questioning the BMI, and centering their desire for corporeal "thickness" as critical to their identity as Black women.
A syndemics approach to exercise is medicine.
Clarke CV, Adamson BC
Health (London) · 2023 May · PMID 34082584 · Publisher ↗
This paper offers new insights into the promotion of the Exercise is Medicine (EIM) framework for mental illness and chronic disease. Utilising the Syndemics Framework, which posits mental health conditions as corollarie...
This paper offers new insights into the promotion of the Exercise is Medicine (EIM) framework for mental illness and chronic disease. Utilising the Syndemics Framework, which posits mental health conditions as corollaries of social conditions, we argue that medicalized exercise promotion paradigms both ignore the social conditions that can contribute to mental illness and can contribute to mental illness via discrimination and worsening self-concept based on disability. We first address the ways in which the current EIM framework may be too narrow in scope in considering the impact of social factors as determinants of health. We then consider how this narrow scope in combination with the emphasis on independence and individual prescriptions may serve to reinforce stigma and shame associated with both chronic disease and mental illness. We draw on examples from two distinct research projects, one on exercise interventions for depression and one on exercise interventions for multiple sclerosis (MS), in order to consider ways to improve the approach to exercise promotion for these and other, related populations.
Using Photovoice to understand physical and social living environment influence on adherence to diabetes.
Scavarda A, Costa G, Beccaria F
Health (London) · 2023 Mar · PMID 34041947 · Publisher ↗
Within the past several years, a considerable body of research on adherence to diabetes regimen has emerged in public health. However, the focus of the vast majority of these studies has been on the individual traits and...
Within the past several years, a considerable body of research on adherence to diabetes regimen has emerged in public health. However, the focus of the vast majority of these studies has been on the individual traits and attitudes affecting adherence. Still little is known on the role of the social and physical context in supporting or hindering diabetes self-management, particularly from a qualitative standpoint. To address these limitations, this paper presents the findings of a Photovoice study on a sample of 10 type 2 diabetic older adults living in a deprived neighbourhood of an Italian city. The findings reveal that the possibility to engage in diet, exercise and blood sugar monitoring seems to be more affected by physical and social elements of the respondents' environment than by the interviewees' beliefs and attitudes. Both environmental barriers and social isolation emerge as barriers to lifestyle changes and self-care activities related to blood sugar monitoring. The predominance of bonding social capital, the scant level of trust and the negative perception of local health services result in a low level of social cohesion, a limited circulation of health information on diabetes management and, consequently, in poor health outcomes.
Barriers to physical activity for father's living in marginalising conditions.
Darroch FE, Oliffe JL, Montaner GG … +1 more , Webb JM
Health (London) · 2023 Jan · PMID 33947266 · Full text
Physical activity can be a conduit for improving men's social connectedness as well as physical gains for well-being. However, marginalised men, and fathers in particular, can be challenged to engage in leisure time phys...
Physical activity can be a conduit for improving men's social connectedness as well as physical gains for well-being. However, marginalised men, and fathers in particular, can be challenged to engage in leisure time physical activity. This qualitative study reports how fathers, who experience complex and significant social and health inequities, conceptualise and experience barriers to physical activity. Drawing from focus groups with 17 fathers, and semi-structured interviews with seven service providers about their perspectives on men's physical activity in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES), a highly marginalised neighbourhood. A masculinities framework was used to describe and contextualise physical activity in fathers' lives. Three themes were inductively derived through the analyses: (1) 'they're busy surviving' a finding referencing the work and limits invoked by poverty wherein survival was triaged ahead of leisure time physical activity; (2) 'there is no activity centre' chronicling the lack of physical activity spaces, programmes and resources available to fathers; and (3) 'lifestyle affects our capability to exercise' a theme detailing how social isolation amplified by factors including housing and opioid crises, and being a father in a resource poor setting imposed significant barriers to physical activity. The findings support reconceptualising physical activity programmes with men who are living in marginalising conditions to address behavioural and structural health inequities in tailoring father-centred programmes and resources.
The piety of optimization: The rhetoric of health awareness in ParticipACTION and Fitbit.
Gaudet L
Health (London) · 2023 Jan · PMID 33541121 · Full text
This article uses the tools of rhetorical study to investigate how health awareness, as both a concept and a set of beliefs that reinforce ideals of health, permeates everyday life and affects ways of being. I explore ho...
This article uses the tools of rhetorical study to investigate how health awareness, as both a concept and a set of beliefs that reinforce ideals of health, permeates everyday life and affects ways of being. I explore how health awareness is communicated through both public health and commercial marketing campaigns, and argue that as the sources of information change, so too do the ideas of health that we are asked to be aware of. Through an analysis of the websites of ParticipACTION, a publicly funded health and fitness campaign, and Fitbit, a corporation that produces wearable technologies, I show that these organizations provide their audiences with instructions for self-conduct in the pursuit of health through the piety that time is a resource to be managed. Through this piety, ParticipACTION and Fitbit's websites each reify an altar of health where health is represented as a socially and physically fitter (optimized) self, always just out of reach and attainable in the future. I conclude with a call for critical descriptions of health awareness to move beyond the explanatory power of neoliberalization of health, and turn to the work of Rachel Sanders, Annmarie Mol, and Donna Haraway as possible avenues for resisting optimization.
Resistance or appropriation?: Uptake of exercise after a nurse-led intervention to promote self-management for osteoarthritis.
Morden A, Ong BN, Jinks C … +3 more , Healey E, Finney A, Dziedzic KS
Health (London) · 2022 Mar · PMID 32486866 · Full text
The philosophical underpinning of trials of complex interventions is critiqued for not taking into account causal mechanisms that influence potential outcomes. In this article, we draw from in-depth interviews (with prac...
The philosophical underpinning of trials of complex interventions is critiqued for not taking into account causal mechanisms that influence potential outcomes. In this article, we draw from in-depth interviews (with practice nurses and patients) and observations of practice meetings and consultations to investigate the outcomes of a complex intervention to promote self-management (in particular exercise) for osteoarthritis in primary care settings. We argue that nurses interpreted the intervention as underpinned by the need to educate rather than work with patients, and, drawing from Habermasian theory, we argue that expert medicalised knowledge (system) clashed with lay 'lifeworld' prerogatives in an uneven communicative arena (the consultation). In turn, the advice and instructions given to patients were not always commensurate with their 'lifeworld'. Consequently, patients struggled to embed exercise routines into their daily lives for reasons of unsuitable locality, sense-making that 'home' was an inappropriate place to exercise and using embodied knowledge to test the efficacy of exercise on pain. We conclude by arguing that using Habermasian theory helped to understand reasons why the trial failed to increase exercise levels. Our findings suggest that communication styles influence the outcomes of self-management interventions, reinforce the utility of theoretically informed qualitative research embedded within trials to improve conduct and outcomes and indicate incorporating perspectives from human geography can enhance Habermas-informed research and theorising.
The agentic Self and uncontrollable body: Young people's management of chronic illness at university.
Spencer G, Lewis S, Reid M
Health (London) · 2021 May · PMID 31755315 · Publisher ↗
Young people's experiences of living with a long-term health condition have been largely investigated from the perspective of developing autonomy and optimal self-management of treatment regimens. Little existing researc...
Young people's experiences of living with a long-term health condition have been largely investigated from the perspective of developing autonomy and optimal self-management of treatment regimens. Little existing research explores how young people adjust to the experience of chronic illness within everyday social contexts. Drawing on sociocultural theories of healthism, in this article, we examine the everyday strategies students employed to manage their health condition at university. Data were drawn from a qualitative study with 16 undergraduate students in Australia. Findings from interviews highlight how participants took up discourses of the (hard-working, diligent) Self to discursively position themselves as 'health conscious' and 'in control'. This positioning was maintained through separating the controlled Self from the (uncontrollable) body. The unpredictability of the body posed a threat to young people's abilities to maintain control and denied them opportunities to exercise personal agency. Yet, participants also described a number of subversive strategies in order to take back control and resist the experience of ill health. These potential agentic practices often held unintended consequences, including loss of optimal medical control or (self) exclusion from university life - offering new insights into the differing ways young people concomitantly take-up, rework and resist the pursuit of healthism to 'successfully' manage their health conditions.
Negotiating exercise as medicine: Narratives from people with type 2 diabetes.
Stuij M, Elling A, Abma T
Health (London) · 2021 Jan · PMID 31117826 · Full text
The dominant notion that exercise is medicine puts a strong normative emphasis on individual responsibility for participation in sport and physical activity. The aim of this article was to explore how people with type 2...
The dominant notion that exercise is medicine puts a strong normative emphasis on individual responsibility for participation in sport and physical activity. The aim of this article was to explore how people with type 2 diabetes, a condition strongly linked to lifestyle behaviour both in origin and in management, translate this notion into their daily life. Based on a critical narrative analysis of stories of 18 Dutch people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes collected between 2012 and 2016, we found a range of meanings given to sport and physical activity. In addition, almost all respondents seemed to subscribe to the notion of exercise as medicine on a general level, either quite explicitly or in more subtle ways, for example, elicited by the interview setting. However, they employed different strategies to negotiate with the translation of this notion into their daily life, ranging from (almost) total acceptance to resistance. In addition, nearly all stories revealed mostly negative experiences with care and professional support regarding the uptake or continuation of sport or physical activity participation after diagnosis.
Rethinking conceptual frameworks and models of health and natural environments.
Lawrence RJ, Forbat J, Zufferey J
Health (London) · 2019 Mar · PMID 30786769 · Publisher ↗
This article considers conceptual frameworks and models applied in research about the multiple relations between human contact with natural environments (specifically green public spaces), diverse kinds of human activiti...
This article considers conceptual frameworks and models applied in research about the multiple relations between human contact with natural environments (specifically green public spaces), diverse kinds of human activities and uses of those spaces, and effects on physical and mental health. Conceptual frameworks are tools for thinking about such complex subjects. Conceptual models represent the multiple relations between key factors and variables. These models can be used to represent the mutual interactions between the core components of environmental conditions of specific green public spaces, the main kinds of human activities in those settings, and various impacts on health. A literature search showed that the authors of various conceptual models used a metaphor of pathways to represent relations between explanatory variables by linear cause-effect relations. Mutual interaction between key variables and feedback loops between different components of the model are rarely included. Hence, it is argued that these models do not represent the complexity of real world situations. The authors propose a systemic conceptual framework founded on core principles of human ecology. The proposed conceptual framework and model have been formulated during and after an EU 7th Framework project about the ''Positive Health Effects of the Natural Outdoor Environment in Typical Populations in Different Regions of Europe."
Atmospheres, landscapes and nature: Off-road runners' experiences of well-being.
MacBride-Stewart S
Health (London) · 2019 Mar · PMID 30786767 · Full text
This article reflects on the relations between health and natural landscapes. The study explores how the landscape context - its textual and sensory aesthetics - positively shapes experiences and perceptions of the lands...
This article reflects on the relations between health and natural landscapes. The study explores how the landscape context - its textual and sensory aesthetics - positively shapes experiences and perceptions of the landscape, for those people who seek out natural environments for health. While health promotion is designated along the lines of encouraging choice or improving access to natural environments, this article wants to show how physical activities are intertwined with atmospheres and affects emanating from the natural and human world. An in-depth case-study of trail running across two sites (New Zealand, United Kingdom) is used to analyse the interconnections between health landscapes. It finds that when participants say that landscape 'matters' for health, they are referring to: (1) aesthetics and feelings, (2) flexibility and adaptiveness and (3) exploration and adventure. Avoiding the conclusion that the landscape is merely a resource for health, the analysis confirms that it is the complex of spaces, social practices, along with their physical fleshy selves, minds and emotions, and the particular quality of the earth beneath them, that gives rise to positively perceived health, for both immediate and enduring benefit.
Obesity, stigma and reflexive embodiment: the 'weight' of expectation.
Williams O, Annandale E
Health (London) · 2020 Jul · PMID 30428717 · Publisher ↗
The dominant obesity discourse which emphasises individual moral responsibility and lifestyle modification encourages weight-based stigma. Existing research overwhelmingly demonstrates that obesity stigma is an ineffecti...
The dominant obesity discourse which emphasises individual moral responsibility and lifestyle modification encourages weight-based stigma. Existing research overwhelmingly demonstrates that obesity stigma is an ineffective means by which to reduce the incidence of obesity and that it promotes weight-gain. However, the sensate experiences associated with the subjective experience of obesity stigma as a reflexively embodied phenomenon have been largely unexamined. This article addresses this knowledge gap by providing a phenomenological account. Data are derived from 11 months of ethnographic participant observation and semi-structured interviews with three single-sex weight-loss groups in England. Group members were predominantly overweight/obese and of low-socio-economic status. The analysis triangulates these two data sources to investigate what/how obesity stigma made group members . We find that obesity stigma confused participant's objective and subjective experiences of their bodies. This was primarily evident on occasions when group members heavier after engaging in behaviours associated with weight-gain but this 'weight' did not register on the weighing scales. We conceptualise this as the which is taken as illustrative of the perpetual uncertainty and morality that characterises weight-management. In addition, we show that respondents ascribed their sensate experiences of physiological responses to exercise with moral and social significance. These provided a sense of certainty and played an important role in attempts to negotiate obesity stigma. These findings deepen the understanding of how and why obesity stigma is an inappropriate and ineffective means of promoting weight-loss.
'Everything I enjoy doing I just couldn't do': Biographical disruption for sport-related injury.
Malcolm D, Pullen E
Health (London) · 2020 Jul · PMID 30253661 · Publisher ↗
This article draws on interview data with a population of non-elite sport/exercise participants (n = 20) to illustrate the interrelationship between biographical disruption and sport-related injury. It argues that contra...
This article draws on interview data with a population of non-elite sport/exercise participants (n = 20) to illustrate the interrelationship between biographical disruption and sport-related injury. It argues that contrary to the significance implied by their lack of prominence on current public health agendas, sport-related injuries can have a devastating personal impact, comparable to the more extreme variants of biographical disruption depicted in the literature on chronic illness. It seeks to explain the apparent incongruence between biophysical severity and subjective assessment of impact, by invoking notions of community normalisation and imagined futures, and identifying the unavailability of what subjects evaluate as effective medical support. These factors combine to problematise the attainment of biographical repair. It further highlights how biographical contingencies such as youthfulness, distinction through exhibiting responsible citizenship and the sense of failure to exert bodily self-management through exercise, perpetuate and escalate both biographical disruption and chronic illness. The paper thus illustrates the aetiological interdependence of biographical disruption and chronic illness as exercisers exacerbate relatively minor ailments due to their reluctance to modify habitual routines.
Assembling the 'Fitbit subject': A Foucauldian-sociomaterialist examination of social class, gender and self-surveillance on Fitbit community message boards.
Esmonde K, Jette S
Health (London) · 2020 May · PMID 30230359 · Publisher ↗
The rise of fitness-tracking devices such as the Fitbit in personal health and wellness is emblematic of the use of data-gathering health and fitness technologies by institutions to create a surveillance regime. Using po...
The rise of fitness-tracking devices such as the Fitbit in personal health and wellness is emblematic of the use of data-gathering health and fitness technologies by institutions to create a surveillance regime. Using postings on Fitbit community message boards and the theoretical frames of Michel Foucault and sociomaterialist scholars, the goal of this article is to analyse the experiences of those who choose to self-track using a Fitbit and the constellation of barriers and facilitators (human and non-human) related to social class and gender that enable and constrain one's ability to use a Fitbit as intended. First, we examine the social class assumptions of Fitbit as a risk management tool in the workplace, illustrating what elements must come together - both human and non-human - to create an environment that enables walking throughout the workday to combat the risks of sedentary work. Second, we explore the ways that Fitbit users 'confessed' to their past inactivity and how gendered home labour differently enables and constrains some of the users' abilities to act on their confessions. Ultimately, one's ability to engage in the idealized use of the Fitbit in the minds of its users, or what we term the 'Fitbit subject assemblage', is structured by numerous material and social factors that must be taken into account when examining the mechanics of power in fitness tracking.
Exploring young people's emotional well-being and resilience in educational contexts: A resilient space?
Cocking C, Sherriff N, Aranda K … +1 more , Zeeman L
Health (London) · 2020 May · PMID 30222009 · Publisher ↗
The term 'resilience' is pervasive in narratives of young people's emotional well-being. However, the meaning it has for those it describes is perhaps less well understood. Resilience was investigated as part of an engag...
The term 'resilience' is pervasive in narratives of young people's emotional well-being. However, the meaning it has for those it describes is perhaps less well understood. Resilience was investigated as part of an engagement exercise into health improvement commissioning in educational contexts in the South East of England. One hundred and nine young people in total were involved, and this article reports data collected from two areas that were explored, comprising a sub-set of 58 participants: emotional well-being and resilience (n = 23) and the whole school approach (n = 35). It was apparent that while not all participants engaged with the term 'resilience' itself, they nevertheless often adopted creative individual and collective strategies to protect and enhance their emotional well-being. Furthermore, participants reported a sense of resilience that arose from a shared sense of adversity that helped strengthen collective support and solidarity, thus supporting previous work on emergent collective resilience. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, along with a recommendation for more participatory research, so that young people can be more confident that their views are being considered within such exercises.
The daily digital practice as a form of self-care: Using photography for everyday well-being.
Brewster L, Cox AM
Health (London) · 2019 Nov · PMID 29627990 · Full text
Interest in the connection between involvement in digital communities and well-being has increased as these communities become more commonplace. Specific models of interaction that affect well-being have emerged; here, w...
Interest in the connection between involvement in digital communities and well-being has increased as these communities become more commonplace. Specific models of interaction that affect well-being have emerged; here, we examine one of those models, termed 'digital daily practice'. Digital daily practices involve a commitment to doing one thing - exercise, photography and writing - every day and sharing it online. Participants in these practices agree that they provide an unexpected benefit of improving well-being. This article makes an in-depth examination of one digital daily practice, photo-a-day, using a practice theory framework to understand the affordances it offers for well-being. We engage with the literature on well-being and self-care, critiquing its presentation of well-being as an individual trait. We present data from an ethnographic study including interviews and observations to highlight how photo-a-day as a practice functions as self-care and how communities are formed around it. Photo-a-day is not a simple and uncomplicated practice; rather it is the complex affordances and variance within the practice that relate it to well-being. We conclude that this practice has multi-faceted benefits for improving well-being.
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