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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

Risky genes, healthy choices : public health as government of the somatic self

Harvey, Alison January 2007 (has links)
No description available.
2

The effects of exercise on body image in young men and women

Townsend, Daisy January 2013 (has links)
Whilst there is clear potential in proposing that exercise is beneficial to body image, equivocal findings and small effect sizes demonstrate that further investigation into the mechanisms that affect this relationship is required. Additionally, established exercisers have been predominately recruited and so little is known about the journey of new exercisers. In order to address these gaps in the literature, study one was a qualitative exploration of the body image experiences of 14 newly exercising men and women. Study two aimed to expand on the qualitative findings from study one by tracking the body image of 365 new exercisers, regular exercisers and non-exercisers for six months and examining whether the effects of exercise on body image were moderated by the exercise environment and exercise motivations. Study three experimentally examined the immediate effects of one particular feature of the fitness centre environment, watching appearance-focused music videos whilst exercising, in 119 sedentary women. Study four consisted of semi-structured interviews with 16 individuals who had taken part in study two but had dropped out of an exercise regime. Taken together, the research presented in this thesis demonstrates that although engaging in exercise is generally associated with improvements in body image satisfaction in new exercisers, once exercise is established minimal improvements to body image occur. Furthermore, it seems that sustained exercise is required for the positive exercise- induced changes 10 remain. Therefore future interventions must focus on adherence to an exercise regime outside of the intervention delivered. Moreover, important factors such as the exercise environment and motivations to exercise can gte.:1.tly Affect this relationship. First, it appears that exercise environments where appearance is emphasised can exacerbate appearance concerns. Additionally, whilst social motivations appear to be associated with improved body image satisfaction, interviews and quantitative data indicate that exercising for appearance is associated with an increased likelihood of dropping out of an exercise regime. Consequently, the positive effects of exercise are dependent on a number of factors, including exercise status, motivations and the exercise environment.
3

Bodybuilding and the emergence of a post classicism

Locks, Adam January 2003 (has links)
This thesis is concerned with the history of professional bodybuilding in America and pays particular attention to the development within its subculture of definitions of the perfect body. This history has involved a shift from a bodybuilding aesthetic which adhered to what was imagined to be a classical archetype, to what, in recent years, has become a more extreme, excessive, ideal. Previous analyses of bodybuilding have primarily offered anthropological and ethnographic methodologies, the result of which has been largely to document the practice of bodybuilding via the opinions of the men (and women) in the field. More often than not, the resultant analyses explored bodybuilding for the exaggerated demonstration of gender relations in the larger culture that it was considered to provide. What has been given much less attention, and which this thesis will remedy, is a detailed focus on the aesthetic of the muscular body itself, and appropriately therefore, this work will examine the representation of the `built body' as a text within this particular subculture. As such, the thesis takes as its subject matter not just the texts of American bodybuilding, for instance as supplied by the extensive magazine literature, but also the text of the body itself, as manifest in the disciplines that manufacture the desired shape, its representation in regulatory criteria, poses, and other performative practices of competition. As such my concern is to chart and question the dramatic changes in the body shape displayed in professional bodybuilding via a narrative of its history, an analysis of its artifacts and practices, existing critical analyses of bodybuilding, insights from art history, and from alternative approaches to the body in Cultural Studies. This thesis opens with the first appearance of bodybuilding in America, which I define not in terms of the possession of a muscular body, but in terms of the possession of the discourse which aestheticised it. In the late nineteenth century this took the form of adherence to an imagined ideal of the classical Greek body as was evidenced in sculpture and painting. Revealingly, the trajectory of bodybuilding ever since has been towards the enlargement and exaggeration of the muscular form, until in very recent years it has achieved a condition which only 25 years ago would have been considered excessive. Indeed the contemporary form presents such an exaggerated definition of the body that many veterans in the bodybuilding community regard it as freakish. However, I argue that to see the contemporary built body as too radical a departure would be mistaken; in fact, this body remains rooted in the classical style - but a style which has been applied very selectively, creating what I consider to be a new ideal, a hyper muscular, but essentially fragmented body, in which the sculpting of individual body parts and the display of body poses have come to supplant the whole body. For this reason, my thesis also examines female bodybuilding, and considers it as a vital defining boundary for this new male aesthetic. Likewise, challenging the concept of the contemporary bodybuilder as a freak is central; as other recent discourses on the body and its modification have made clear, freak can have positive connotations, not least within a society in which identity tends increasingly towards the subcultural.
4

Sacrificing the rational body : a phenomenological approach to voluntary intoxication

Yardley, Tom January 2005 (has links)
No description available.
5

Physical activity and health : an evolutionary approach

Loney, Tom January 2009 (has links)
Anthropologic data suggests that the present human genome evolved in a physically active hunter-gatherer environment where there was an unavoidable linkage between food procurement (energy acquisition) and physical activity (PA; energy expenditure). Antithetically, contemporary society provides the convenience whereby it is no longer necessary to expend energy to procure food, as it is easily accessible, energy dense and cheap. In addition, modern technology and mechanisation (e.g. vehicular transport) have decreased daily energy expenditure. Emerging evidence suggests that numerous public health epidemics (e.g. obesity) may be caused by a mismatch between our 'Stone Age' genes and our 'Space Age' lifestyle.
6

Informal interactions about health : connectedness, surveillance and the construction of a moral identity

Hiscock, Julia January 2013 (has links)
This thesis is about the informal interactions about health that take place between friends and family. An important distinction of this study is that these connections are conceptualised as interactions rather than as helping, caring or support and so, as well as larger scale help, the study is also concerned with conversations about health and small-scale, fleeting or incidental interactions about health. It is argued that only by combining all of these types of interactions is it possible to begin to understand broader issues of sociological importance about the ways that people relate to one another, and how a seemingly personal task such as managing and maintaining one‟s health becomes enmeshed with the input from and connections with other people.Drawing on literature from both the sociology of health and illness and the sociology of personal life, the thesis analyses the way that people present moral narratives of their informal interactions about health and engage with the moral meaning of these health interactions, whether as part of a moral project of the self, an obligation to follow moral norms or out of a sense of moral emotion. It engages theoretically with the individualization and connectedness theses and asks whether health interactions challenge the individualization thesis.An interpretive approach was taken and 25 qualitative interviews were conducted with a sample of people with either heart disease or mild to moderate mental health problems.Examples of a range of health interactions were identified, which included practical, emotional and advice giving interactions. These were often gendered, not always welcomed or positive, and often involved monitoring, surveillance or governmentality. Health interactions were found to be more than a simple transfer of assistance, and relational dynamics going on within the interactions were discovered and discussed.Moral narratives were also identified, where people used health interactions in a number of different ways to construct a moral identity and as part of a moral project of the self. However, the data do not entirely support the notion that health interactions were moral narratives or served the function of identity building, as there were also clear examples of people engaging in health interactions out of a sense of genuine care and because it mattered to them to do so. This moral concern or moral emotion influenced and underpinned many of the health interactions explored in this thesis.
7

Body image and body image investment in mastectomy and breast reconstruction

Le Vesconte, Helen January 2012 (has links)
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in the UK and both diagnosis and treatment can cause significant levels of distress and impaired quality of life. There arc many factors that relate to psychological distress in women coping with breast cancer including changes in body image. Appearance-related side effects, such as hair loss, are often reported as more severe than side-effects such as nausea and fatigue. A review of the literature explores the links between mainstream body image models and breast cancer. The impact of mastectomy on body image and mental health outcomes is discussed as well as the role of breast reconstruction, as this may help to alleviate women's body image difficulties and emotional distress following surgery. The need to understand the role of body image investment within theoretical models as well as for breast cancer patients facing mastectomy and immediate reconstruction is highlighted, especially in light of the inconsistencies found within the literature. The empirical paper investigates the psychosocial and body image outcomes of two groups of women: those undergoing mastectomy alone and those undergoing mastectomy with immediate breast reconstruction. It also examines whether investment in body image acts as a moderating variable between surgery type and subsequent psychological distress. Both groups reported deteriorations in their body image following surgery, though this did not always correspond with increased emotional distress. Women who reported a higher body image investment who underwent mastectomy alone had the poorest outcomes.
8

Health, exercise and the body : 'why some women might, and others might not, take part in physical exercise' : the role of the body, a developmental contextualist perspective

Dean, Pip January 2003 (has links)
No description available.
9

Gender, power and identities in the fitness gym : towards a sociology of the 'exercise body-beautiful complex'

Mansfield, Louise January 2005 (has links)
This thesis examines the ways in which female bodies are central to the production and reproduction of gendered social inequality, and the formation of feminine identities in the fitness gym. Ethnographic methods were utilised to investigate the patterns and relations of power that underpinned the production and reproduction of feminine body ideals and feminine identities and habituses in a fitness gym in the South-East of England. The potential usefulness of harnessing feminist and figurational concepts for understanding gendered bodies in the context of sport and exercise is also explored. Some of the theoretical and methodological links between feminist and figurational perspectives are explored in this thesis. A feminist-figurational approach is presented as a useful way of understanding the complexities of female body image and feminine identification in the fitness gym. Central in this regard has been an examination of the unequal relationships between, and within, groups of people in exercise and fitness settings. The task of producing a relatively high degree of adequate knowledge about gendered bodies in the fitness gym has also involved consideration of several concepts related to Elias's (1978,1987) theory of involvement and detachment including: the personal pronoun model, the use of developmental thinking, the interplay between theory and evidence and the adequacy of evidence. Feminist and figurational ideas about gender, power and identities have been of use in making sense of the relationships between workingout, female bodies and femininities. Elias's conceptualisations of power, establishedoutsider relations and identification have been particularly helpful. Evidence from participant observations and interviewing revealed that several mechanisms serve to reinforce, challenge and negotiate a variety of images of the female body-beautiful in the fitness gym. These include: the insecurity and emotion that surround the acquisition and maintenance of an ideal physique, the monopolisation of corporeal power, the construction of group charisma and group disgrace, the formation of gossip networks, and the corporeal logic of the 'exercise body-beautiful complex'. The findings also reveal that female bodies are central to the formation of feminine identities and habituses. Feminine identities are founded on both different and shared characteristics of the female body-beautiful. Some female exercisers also share some characteristics with other women, specifically in the context of the fitness gym. Linked to a desire for a high status body Image, there is a tendency for white, western, middle-class, heterosexual, able-bodied women, who go to the gym, to share a preference for cosmetic fitness activities, and an emotional tie to aspirations for a slender, muscularly toned physique. The exercise histories of the women in this study indicated that the inculcation of feminine conduct and bodily preference happens over time, and in relation to a range of corporeal experiences including: physical education, sport, exercise, dance, dieting and adolescence.
10

Meeting up with the worlds of exercise and rave at the start of the twenty-first century : a story about young people, body culture, health and identity in changing times

Gaule, Scott G. January 2005 (has links)
No description available.

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