Most people are aware of the health benefits of being physically active. The question arises then why people so easily fall into sedentary habits. The idea developed here is that sedentary behavior is part of a suite of behaviors to reduce levels of physical activity that were strongly selected in the evolutionary past, likely because high levels of physical activity had direct negative consequences for survival. However, hunter‐gatherer populations could not reduce activity indefinitely because of the need to be active (...) to hunt for, and gather food. Hence they never experienced low levels of activity that are damaging to health, and no corresponding mechanism avoiding low activity evolved. Consequently, gene variants promoting efficiency of activity and increased sedentariness were never selected against. Modern society facilitates reduced activity by providing many options to become less active and divorcing food intake from the need to be active. Choosing the less active option is hard wired in the genes; this explains why being sedentary is so common, and why reversing it is so difficult. Incentivizing activity may be enabled using modern technology, but ultimately may only end up replacing one set of health issues with others. Also see the video abstract here https://youtu.be/ekHbUwPw-v4. (shrink)

Context and AimsAlthough some exercise-based interventions have been associated with lower levels of pain and performance-related musculoskeletal disorders among musicians, the evidence is still mixed. Furthermore, little is known about musicians’ general engagement in physical activity, their knowledge of PA guidelines, or the relevant training they receive on pain prevention and the sources of such training. Similarly, little is known about the relationship between PA and PRMDs and other risk factors for PRMDs.MethodsFollowing a cross-sectional correlational study design, both standardized andad (...) hocmeasurements were used to investigate self-reported PA [International Physical Activity Questionnaire – Short Form ], knowledge of PA guidelines, and barriers to engaging in PA [Centers for Disease Control ; Determinants of Physical Activity Questionnaire ]; sedentary behavior [Sedentary Behavior Questionnaire ]; pain [36-Item Short Form Survey Instrument ] and PRMDs ; reported physical exertion ; anxiety [Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale ]; practice behaviors ; and relevant training among conservatoire students in the United Kingdom. The entire set of questionnaires was administered both online and via hard copies between June 2017 and April 2018.ResultsDemographic information was obtained from 111 respondents, mostly undergraduate students from seven conservatoires. They reported high levels of engagement in PA, despite poor knowledge of PA guidelines. Teachers were the most frequently mentioned source of pain prevention information, and 62% agreed that they had received advice on why they should engage in cardio PA. Sedentary behavior was comparable to normative data. Levels of bodily pain and PRMDs were low, but 43% showed “abnormal” clinical anxiety and found playing their instruments “somewhat hard” on average. Bodily pain interfering with practice and performance was positively correlated with frequency and severity of PRMDs, anxiety, and RPE. Frequency and severity of PRMDs were also associated with sedentary behavior at the weekend. Anxiety was associated with RPE. No association was found between PA and PRMDs.ConclusionThe relationship between PA and PRMDs and pain remains unclear and needs further investigation. While health education needs to be improved, other pathways may need to be taken. Given the high levels of anxiety, the ideology of Western classical music itself may need to be challenged. (shrink)

Diversos estudios internacionales indican que los pescadores sufren diferentes problemas de salud, entre los cuales son frecuentes las enfermedades cardiovasculares, accidentes laborales, heridas, ahogamientos, estrés laboral y problemas de salud mental. Objetivo: Con el estudio se pretendió identificar el nivel de bienestar sicológico y sedentarismo de pescadores artesanales de la Región de Los Lagos, Chile. Método: Se realizó un estudio cuantitativo que consistió en la aplicación de la escala de bienestar sicológico de Ryff y la versión breve del cuestionario de (...) actividad física IPAQ a 41 pescadores artesanales con una media de edad de 53,22 años. Resultados: Los resultados indican que un 68,3 % de pescadores son sedentarios, mientras que en las dimensiones del bienestar sicológico un 22 % muestra un alto nivel de crecimiento personal, seguido de un 14,7 % que presenta un alto nivel de dominio del entorno. No obstante, un alto porcentaje de los pescadores, 34,1 %, se encuentra en un nivel bajo de crecimiento personal, seguido de un 31,7 % con bajo nivel de autonomía y un 26,8 % con bajo nivel de relaciones positivas. Conclusiones: Los datos indican la necesidad de generar acciones preventivas de promoción y tratamiento oportuno de las patologías de salud mental para evitar que se conviertan en causas directas o indirectas de fallecimiento de los trabajadores. Diverse international studies show that artisanal fishermen suffer from different health issues, among which cardiovascular diseases, occupational accidents, injuries, drowning, work-related stress and mental health problems are the most frequent. Objective: the aim of the study was to identify the psychological well-being and sedentary lifestyle levels in artisanal fishermen from Los Lagos Region, Chile. Method: this was quantitative study consisting in applying Ryff's Psychological Well-being Scale and the short form of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire to 41 artisanal fishermen, whose mean age was 53.22 years. Results: the results reveal that 68.3 % of the fishermen have a sedentary lifestyle, while in the psychological well-being dimensions 22 % of them show a high level of personal development, followed by 14.7 % who have a high level of the control of the environment. Nevertheless, there is a considerable percentage of fishermen, 34.1 %, who have a low level od personal development, followed by 31.7 % with a low level of autonomy and 26.8 % with a low level of positive relationships. Conclusions: the data reveals a need to generate preventive healthcare measures and its promotion, and ensure an opportune treatment of mental pathologies in order to avoid that those become a direct or indirect cause for the demise of workers. (shrink)

With Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas, I show that a home does not have the ontological structure of objects; it is a fixed point that makes possible the perceived and employed map of the paths, objectives, implements and obstacles of the environment. It is also a space closed to the trafficking of the outside environment. It is also a place of welcome, where we, Heidegger says, welcome earth and skies, fellow mortals and harbingers of the sacred, where we, Levinas says, (...) welcome kin and strangers. Humans share the establishing of a home base with many other species of mammals, birds, fish, and insects. And humans share their home with other species. Incarceration is the extreme case of a home base without an outlying environment. Humans also live in spaces without home base. The bent to live on the open road without a home base is something humans share with giraffes, opossums, quail, and albatross. Some people by choice or by necessity are homeless. Most people live months or years of homelessness. (shrink)

Cognitive control of physical activity and sedentary behavior is receiving increased attention in the neuroscientific and behavioral medicine literature as a means of better understanding and improving the self-regulation of physical activity. Enhancing individuals’ cognitive control capacities may provide a resilient means to increase physical activity and reduce sedentary behavior. First, this paper reviews emerging evidence of the antecedence of cognitive control abilities in successful self-regulation of physical activity, and in precipitating self-regulation failure that predisposes to sedentary behavior. We then (...) highlight the brain networks that may underpin the cognitive control and self-regulation of physical activity, including the default mode network, prefrontal cortical networks and brain regions and pathways associated with reward. We then discuss research on cognitive training interventions that document improved cognitive control and that suggest promise of influencing physical activity regulation. Key cognitive training components likely to be the most effective at improving self-regulation are also highlighted. The review concludes with suggestions for future research. (shrink)

White matter tracts are known to be susceptible to injury following concussion. The objective of this study was to determine whether contact play in sport could alter white matter metabolite levels in female varsity athletes independent of changes induced by long-term exercise. Metabolite levels were measured by single voxel proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy in the prefrontal white matter at the beginning and end of season in contact and non-contact varsity athletes. Sedentary women were scanned once, at a time equivalent to (...) the Off-Season time point. Metabolite levels in non-contact athletes did not change over a season of play, or differ from age matched sedentary women except that non-contact athletes had a slightly lower myo-inositol level. The contact athletes had lower levels of myo-inositol and glutamate, and higher levels of glutamine compared to both sedentary women and non-contact athletes. Lower levels of myo-inositol in non-contact athletes compared to sedentary women indicates long-term exercise may alter glial cell profiles in these athletes. The metabolite differences observed between contact and non-contact athletes suggest that non-contact athletes should not be used as controls in studies of concussion in high-impact sports because repetitive impacts from physical contact can alter white matter metabolite level profiles. It is imperative to use athletes engaged in the same contact sport as controls to ensure a matched metabolite profile at baseline. (shrink)

Previous research has demonstrated that regular exercise modulates motor cortical plasticity and cognitive function, but the influence of short-term high-intensity interval training remains unclear. In the present study, the effect of short-term HIIT on neuroplasticity and executive function was assessed in 32 sedentary females. Half of the participants undertook 2 weeks of HIIT. Paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation was used to measure motor cortical plasticity via short intracortical inhibition and intracortical facilitation. We further adapted the Stroop task using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (...) to evaluate executive function in the participants. The results indicated that, compared with the control group, the HIIT group exhibited decreased ICF. In the Stroop task, the HIIT group displayed greater activation in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and left orbitofrontal cortex even though no significant difference in task performance was observed. These findings indicate that short-term HIIT may modulate motor cortical plasticity and executive function at the neural level. (shrink)

Physical activity, and likely the motivation for it, varies throughout the day. The aim of this investigation was to create a short assessment (CRAVE: Cravings for Rest and Volitional Energy Expenditure) to measure motivation states (wants, desires, urges) for physical activity and sedentary behaviors. Five studies were conducted to develop and evaluate the construct validity and reliability of the scale, with 1,035 participants completing the scale a total of 1,697 times. In Study 1, 402 university students completed a questionnaire inquiring (...) about the want or desire to perform behaviors “at the present moment (right now).” Items related to physical activity (e.g., “move my body”) and sedentary behaviors (e.g., “do nothing active”). An exploratory structural equation model (ESEM) revealed that 10 items should be retained, loading onto two factors (5 each for Move and Rest). In Study 2, an independent sample (n= 444) confirmed these results and found that Move and Rest desires were associated with stage-of-change for exercise behavior. In Study 3, 127 community-residing participants completed the CRAVE at 6-month intervals over two years- two times each session. Across-session interclass correlations (ICC) for Move (ICC = 0.72–0.95) and Rest (ICC = 0.69–0.88) were higher than when they were measured across 24-months (Move: ICC = 0.53; Rest: ICC = 0.49), indicating wants/desires have state-like qualities. In Study 4, a maximal treadmill test was completed by 21 university students. The CRAVE was completed immediately pre and post. Move desires decreased 26% and Rest increased 74%. Changes in Move and Rest desires were moderately associated with changes in perceived physical fatigue and energy. In Study 5, 41 university students sat quietly during a 50-min lecture. They completed the CRAVE at 3 time points. Move increased 19.6% and Rest decreased 16.7%. Small correlations were detected between move and both perceived energy and tiredness, but not calmness or tension. In conclusion, the CRAVE scale has good psychometric properties. These data also support tenets of the WANT model of motivation states for movement and rest (Stults-Kolehmainen et al., 2020a). Future studies need to explore how desires to move/rest relate to dynamic changes in physical activity and sedentarism. (shrink)

Background: The prevalence of sedentary behavior in adolescents has aroused social attention. The association between sedentary behavior and cognitive flexibility remains unclear, and it may vary depending on the type of sedentary behavior. This study aimed to investigate the associations between specific-type sedentary behaviors and cognitive flexibility in adolescents.Method: A total of 700 Chinese adolescents aged 10–15 years were recruited. The self-report questionnaire was used to assess total sedentary time, recreational screen-based sedentary time, and educational sedentary time. The More-odd shifting (...) task was used to assess cognitive flexibility.Results: The correlation analysis showed that recreational screen-based sedentary time was negatively correlated with cognitive flexibility, whereas educational sedentary time was positively correlated with cognitive flexibility. The regression analysis also further revealed that a significantly negative association between recreational screen-based sedentary time and cognitive flexibility, while a significantly positive association existed between educational sedentary time and cognitive flexibility.Conclusion: The findings shown that the association between recreational screen-based sedentary behavior and cognitive flexibility differs from educational sedentary behavior in adolescents, providing new ideas for a more comprehensive understanding of the association between sedentary behavior and cognitive flexibility in adolescents. (shrink)

High school students are at risk for increased sedentary behavior due in part to a decrease in physical activity throughout adolescence and to required sedentary behavior during much of the school day. The purpose of the current study is to examine the impact of using activity workstations in a high school English class for struggling readers. Twenty high school students participated in the study. The participants completed a 16-week study where each participant used an activity workstation for 8 weeks and (...) a traditional desk for 8 weeks in a crossover design for a 40-min period during normal class. They responded to a series of subjective questions about reading and schoolwork at the beginning and end of each 8-week session and followed the READ 180 program designed to help struggling readers during the study. The results indicated that academic performance increased in both desk conditions during the study and from the beginning to the end of the study. In addition, there was a significant improvement in items in the subjective survey related to reading, motivation, and schoolwork in both desk conditions across the study. The current results suggest that using an activity workstation in the classroom did not negatively affect academic performance or students’ perceptions of working on academic assignments compared to the traditional desk condition. These results indicate that activity workstations could be implemented in classrooms to provide students with a non-sedentary option during the school day thus increasing physical activity in students. (shrink)

Worldwide, the literature reports that many residents in long‐term care (LTC) homes are sedentary. In Canada, personal support workers (PSWs) provide most of the direct care in LTC homes and could play a key role in promoting activity for residents. The purpose of this institutional ethnographic study was to uncover the social organization of LTC work and to discover how this organization influenced the physical activity of residents. Data were collected in two LTC homes in Ontario, Canada through participant observations (...) with PSWs and interviews with people within and external to the homes. Findings explicate the links between meals, lifts and transfers, and the LTC standards to reveal that physical activity is considered an add‐on program in the purview of physiotherapists. Some of the LTC standards which are intended to product good outcomes for residents actually disrupt the work of PSWs making it difficult for them to respond to the physical activity needs of residents. This descriptive ethnographic account is an important first step in trying to find a solution to optimize real activities of daily living into life in LTC. (shrink)

Transcranial magnetic stimulation studies have demonstrated increased cortical facilitation and reduced inhibition following aerobic exercise, even when examining motor regions separate to the exercised muscle group. These changes in brain physiology following exercise may create favorable conditions for adaptive plasticity and motor learning. One candidate mechanism behind these benefits is the increase in brain-derived neurotropic factor observed following exercise, which can be quantified from a venous blood draw. The aim of this study was to investigate changes in motor cortex excitability (...) and inhibition of the upper limb, and circulating BDNF, following high-intensity interval training on a stationary bicycle. Nineteen sedentary adults participated in a randomized crossover design study involving a single bout of high-intensity interval cycling for 20 min or seated rest. Venous blood samples were collected, and transcranial magnetic stimulation was used to stimulate the extensor carpi radialis, where motor evoked potentials were recorded pre- and post-condition. Following exercise, there was a significant increase in corticospinal excitability measured at 120% of resting motor threshold and a reduction in short-interval cortical inhibition. There was a non-significant 23.6% increase in BDNF levels. Collectively, these results reflect a net reduction in gamma aminobutyric acid ergic synaptic transmission and increased glutamatergic facilitation, resulting in increased corticospinal excitability. This study supports the notion that acute high-intensity exercise provides a potent stimulus for inducing cortical neuroplasticity, which may support enhanced motor learning. (shrink)

Physical activity and sedentary behaviour have been linked to the mental health of children and adolescents, yet the timing of behaviours may play a role in this relationship and clarifying this could inform interventions. We explored cross-sectional associations of PA and SED in varying time segments throughout the school day with the mental health of school-aged children and adolescents from rural Northeastern Ontario, Canada. A total of 161 students wore accelerometers for 8 days and completed a self-report survey. Mental health (...) was measured using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Accelerometer-measured SED, light PA, and moderate and vigorous PA were estimated in the time-segments before school, school time, after school, and evenings. Associations were tested with multilevel linear regressions while adjusting for confounding factors. Students spent 72.6 min in MVPA, 209.0 min in LPA, and 621.0 min in SED per day. Daily SED was associated with less conduct problems. Evening LPA was inversely associated with hyperactivity, while SED was associated with hyperactivity and with peer problems before school, and during school. No associations were observed for MVPA, emotional symptoms, or prosocial behaviour. In conclusion, displacing SED with LPA in some specific periods of the day may benefit the mental health of students; taking this into account could strengthen interventions. (shrink)

Physical activity, body composition and sedentary behavior may affect the health of children. Therefore, this study examined the effect of an educational hybrid physical education program on physical fitness, body composition and sedentary and PA times in adolescents. A 9-month group-randomized controlled trial was conducted in 150 participants allocated into the control group and experimental group. Cardiorespiratory fitness, speed, strength, agility, flexibility and body mass index were assessed through previously validated field tests. Sedentary time, PA at school and afterschool were (...) evaluated with the Youth Activity Profile-Spain questionnaire. Significant differences were observed concerning to the CG in APA-weekend, speed-agility and agility. Regarding the intervention, cardiorespiratory fitness, speed-agility, strength, flexibility, agility, PA in school, APA-weekday, APA-weekend, APA-week, and sedentary time increased significantly in the EG. The use of a hybrid program based on teaching personal and social responsibility and gamification strategies produced enhancements in cardiorespiratory fitness, agility, speed, APA-weekdays and APA-weekends, reducing the sedentary time. (shrink)

Intervention studies on sedentary older adults have demonstrated that commencing physical exercise at an older age has a positive effect on brain structure. Although this suggests that older athletes with lifelong sports training have larger gray matter volume in some brain regions compared to age-matched non-athletes, evidence in the literature is scarce. Moreover, it remains unclear whether a larger GMV is associated with training intensity or period of training in life. To address these gaps in the literature, we compared regional (...) brain GMV between 24 older athletes and 24 age-matched non-athletes. The period of sports training and the current training time of the athletes were assessed. Both groups were evaluated for physical activity intensity as well as cognitive and motor performance. Although no group differences were noted in cognitive and motor performance, athletes reported higher physical activity intensity than non-athletes. Whole-brain structural analysis revealed a significantly larger GMV in several brain regions in athletes. Notably, the GMV of the precuneus in athletes was positively correlated with earlier commencement of sports training and training duration but was negatively correlated with current training time. Our findings demonstrate that early-commenced and continued sports training predicts structural maintenance of the precuneus in old age. Our results also suggest that excessive training time in old age may have a negative impact on the GMV of the precuneus; thereby delineating how the precuneus is associated with lifelong sports training in older athletes. (shrink)

The erstwhile sedentary Parisian theologian, Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, traveled extensively throughout Europe after his election as Minister General of the Minorite Order in 1257. In the fall of 1259 he arrived on Mount La Verna in Tuscany. As he ruminated on the stigmatized flesh of Francis of Assisi, Bonaventure composed the classical mystical text, Itinerarium mentis in Deum. Utilizing Michel de Certeau's work on prayer, travel narratives and spatial practices, this essay explores how Bonaventure rereads the story of the Poverello (...) in the Itinerarium mentis in Deum as a mystic narrative of peripatetic prayer. (shrink)

Research suggests that sedentary behavior is negatively associated with cognitive outcomes. Interrupting prolonged sitting has been shown to improve cognitive functions, including executive functioning, which is important for academic performance. No research has been conducted on the effect of standing on EF in VET students, who make up a large proportion of the adolescent population and who are known to sit more than other students of this age. In this study, we investigated the acute effects of reducing SB by short (...) time standing on EF in vocational education and training students. In a randomized crossover study, 165 VET students were first taught for 15 min in seated position. After this, they performed while seated the Letter Memory Test for updating, and the Color Shape Test for shifting and inhibition. Students were randomly assigned to a sitting or standing condition. All students were taught again for 15 min and then took the same tests in the condition they were allocated to, respectively, standing or seated. After 1 week, the test procedure was repeated, in which students switched conditions. Mixed model analyses showed no significant effect of sitting or standing on updating, shifting, or inhibition. Also, no significant differences were found for the order of condition on updating, shifting, or inhibition. Our results suggest that 40 min of standing does not significantly influence EF among VET students. (shrink)

Much disease and disability is the result of lifestyle behaviours. For example, the contribution of imprudence in the form of smoking, poor diet, sedentary lifestyle, and drug and alcohol abuse to ill-health is now well established. More importantly, some of the greatest challenges facing humanity as a whole – climate change, terrorism, global poverty, depletion of resources, abuse of children, overpopulation – are the result of human behaviour. In this chapter, we will explore the possibility of using advances in the (...) cognitive sciences to develop strategies to intentionally manipulate human motivation and behaviour. While our arguments apply also to improving prudential motivation and behaviour in relation to health, we will focus on the more controversial instance: the deliberate targeted use of biomedicine to improve moral motivation and behaviour. We do this because the challenge of improving human morality is arguably the most important issue facing humankind (Persson and Savulescu, forthcoming). We will ask whether using the knowledge from the biological and cognitive sciences to influence motivation and behaviour erodes autonomy and, if so, whether this makes it wrong. (shrink)

This essay enacts a philosophy of science education inspired by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's figurations of rhizomatic and nomadic thought. It imagines rhizomes shaking the tree of modern Western science and science education by destabilising arborescent conceptions of knowledge as hierarchically articulated branches of a central stem or trunk rooted in firm foundations, and explores how becoming nomadic might liberate science educators from the sedentary judgmental positions that serve as the nodal points of Western academic science education theorising. This (...) is demonstrated by commencing two rhizomatic textual assemblages that generate questions, provocations and challenges to dominant discourses and assumptions of contemporary science education. The first of these addresses cultural representations of Sir Isaac Newton and the second makes multiple, hybrid connections among the parasites, mosquitoes, humans, technologies and socio‐technical relations signified by malaria. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume 29, Number 1, April 2003, pp. 125-141 Dr. George Cheyne, Chevalier Ramsay, and Hume's Letter to a Physician JOHN P. WRIGHT The publication of a new intellectual biography of George Cheyne1 provides a "propitious" occasion for "a thoroughly skeptical review"2 of the question which has long exercised Hume scholars, whether Cheyne was the intended recipient of David Hume's fascinating pie-Treatise Letter to a Physician,3 the letter (...) which describes his own hypochondriacal physical and mental symptoms and gives an account of his early philosophical development.4 Hume's nineteenth-century biographer, John Hill Burton, argued that Hume was probably writing to Cheyne,5 while Ernest Mossner claimed to definitively refute that hypothesis in an article entitled "Hume's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," published in 1944.6 Anita Guerrini's intellectual biography does not discuss Cheyne as a possible recipient of Hume's letter, but she does present a well-rounded picture of this interesting eighteenth-century physician from which we can judge his appropriateness as its addressee. In the following discussion I will make use of the biographical material found in this new biography of Cheyne, as well as other sources, to show that Mossner's arguments are less than definitive, and that it would be wrong to dismiss the possibility that the letter was sent to George Cheyne.7 This is a possibility that, for reasons that I will make clear, makes good biographical and philosophical sense. At the same time, it is important to keep a proper suspense of judgment as Burton did, for the evidence that the letter was either intended for or actually sent to Cheyne is not definitive. John P. Wright is Professor of Philosophy, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859, USA. e-mail: wrighljp@cmich.edu 126 John P. Wright Burton, who first published the autobiographical letter of the 22-yearold Hume in 1846, narrowed down the possible addressees of Hume's letter to either Cheyne or John Arbuthnot. He also pointed out that it is possible that the letter was never sent, and that the ten and a half page manuscript is only a neatly written draft, rather than a fair copy of an actual letter. Nevertheless, Burton thought he could identify the unnamed addressee on the basis of the internal evidence of the manuscript and the records of Scottish physicians practicing in England at the time. In the letter, Hume refers to the intended recipient as his "Countryman, a Scotchman [,]... a skilful Physician, a man of Letters, of Wit, of Good Sense, & of great Humanity."8 Further he writes that he is consulting him because he is a person "of great Learning beyond [his]... own Profession" who is acquainted with the "Motions of the Mind" he has described in his letter, and that "Fame pointed [him]... out as the properest person to resolve my Doubts..." about the cure of his disorder.9 Burton tells us that "the first name that suggested itself... was Arbuthnot, whose fine genius was just then flickering in the socket."10 (John Arbuthnot had been ill for some time, and died a year later.) But he then added that "a more full consideration showed to my satisfaction that it must have been destined for Dr. George Cheyne." His main reason for settling on Cheyne was that Cheyne's immensely popular The English Malady (1733) had recently been published, and that "there is a certain unison of tone between Hume's letter and this book." Burton quotes a portion of Cheyne's own long autobiographical account of his own disease in The English Malady. Cheyne's autobiography begins with the claim that "I passed my Youth in close study, and almost constant Application to the abstracted Sciences, (wherein my chief pleasure consisted) and consequently in great Temperance and a Sedentary Life"; it is followed by the reflection that any overindulgence in food or drink led to physical and psychological problems.11 He goes on to describe these in great detail for 39 pages, along with a history of his life. Burton also quotes a section of the book in which Cheyne describes how a studious and sedentary life causes the symptoms... (shrink)

Eating disorders are evolutionarily novel conditions that lead to some of the highest mortality rates of all psychiatric disorders. Several evolutionary hypotheses have been proposed for eating disorders, but only the intrasexual competition hypothesis is extensively supported by evidence. We present the mismatch hypothesis as a necessary extension to the current theoretical framework of eating disorders. This hypothesis explains the evolutionarily novel adaptive metaproblem that has arisen when mating motives and readily available food rewards conflict with one another. This situation (...) is exacerbated in contemporary environments characterized by sedentary lifestyles, caloric surplus and the ubiquity of social comparisons that take place via social media. Our psychoneuroimmunological model connects ultimate-level causation with proximate mechanisms by showing how the adaptive metaproblem between mating motives and food rewards leads to chronic stress and, further, to disordered eating. Chronic stress causes neuroinflammation, which increases susceptibility to OCD-like behaviors that typically co-occur with eating disorders. Chronic stress upregulates the serotonergic system and causes dysphoric mood in patients with restricting-type anorexia nervosa. Dieting, however, reduces serotonin levels and dysphoric mood, leading to a vicious serotonergic-homeostatic stress/starvation cycle whereby cortisol and neuroinflammation increase through stringent dieting. Between-individual and within-individual variation in eating disorders partially arises from (co)variation in gut microbiota and stress responsivity, which influence neuroinflammation and the serotonergic system. In binge-related eating disorders, even a short period of fasting drops serotonin levels, a state alleviated by binge eating. Eating disorder treatments should aim to reduce the chronic stress, neuroinflammation, stress responsivity and gut dysbiosis that fuel the disorders. We review the advances that have been made in recent years in understanding how to best treat eating disorders, outlining directions for future clinical research. Connecting ultimate causes with proximate mechanisms and treating biopsychosocial causes rather than manifest symptoms will enable more effective and sophisticated long-term interventions for the millions of people who suffer from eating disorders. (shrink)

Imposition of lockdown restrictions during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic was sudden and unprecedented and dramatically changed the life of many people, as they were confined to their homes with reduced movement and access to fitness training facilities. Studies have reported significant associations between physical inactivity, sedentary behavior, and common mental health problems. This study investigated relations between participants’ reports of change in physical activity (PA; i.e., Reduced PA, Unchanged PA, or Increased PA) and levels of anxiety and depression (...) symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Norway in the time period from March 12, 2020 to June 15, 2020. The relations between age and gender and levels of anxiety and depression symptoms as well as how different levels of resilience influenced the relation between changes in PA and levels of anxiety and depression symptoms were also investigated. A cross-sectional survey design was used. Participants (N= 1,314; females = 31%) were members of an endurance sports organization aged between 18 and 81 years (M= 49 years;SD= 11.50 years). Participants completed the Resilience Scale for Adults and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and reported their changes in PA after lockdown restrictions were implemented on March 12, 2020. Regression analysis, independent samplest-test, and two-way multivariate analysis of variance were conducted. Reduced PA was associated with a higher risk of anxiety and depression symptoms. Younger participants in Reduced PA and Unchanged PA subgroups scored significantly higher on levels of anxiety symptoms and significantly higher on depression symptoms in Unchanged PA subgroup. Females in Unchanged PA and Increased PA subgroups scored significantly higher on levels of anxiety symptoms, whereas no gender differences were found for depression symptoms. The main and interaction effects of change in PA and resilience were significantly associated with depression symptoms. For anxiety symptoms, only the main effect of resilience, but not PA, and the interaction effect were significant. Results further showed that resilience was an important factor that influenced the levels of change in PA. High levels of resilience were associated with lower anxiety and depression symptoms in Reduced, Unchanged, and Increased PA subgroups during the COVID-19 lockdown. Promoting PA while boosting resilience factors such as confidence in own ability and drawing on the social support of even reduced social networks or connections while under lockdown can protect against common mental health problems. (shrink)

Toward the end of the Nomadology plateau of A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari differentiate an ambulant holey space from the smooth space of the nomadic war machine and the striated space of the sedentary State apparatus. Although Deleuze and Guattari only discuss the concept briefly, holey space provides a useful means of framing their remarks on music in general. Music’s holey space is a quasi-territory determined by processes of following sonic movement-matter. Its instruments differ from nomadic weapons and sedentary (...) tools, being characterized by directions of injection, ejection and parajection; the vector of lines of the universe and extemporality; the model of free play; the trait of expression of incantation; and the tonality of affects-percepts. A paradigmatic instance of musical holey space is John Luther Adams’ Inuksuit as performed on the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018. (shrink)

The paper traces some of Gilles Deleuze’s reflections on the subject of thought and philosophical activity, focusing especially on the third chapter of one of his main works, Difference and repetition (1968). Following the general structure of the chapter, the paper first analyses the concept of “Image of thought”, which describes the tendency of thought itself to represent its own functioning, and the risks that the Image imply, since it chains the activity of thought to old sedentary habits and its (...) ordinary functioning. Secondly, the paper examines Deleuze’s original proposal of a “thought without image”, a thought whose conditions are not predetermined and that therefore must recreate itself each time. Deleuze arrives at this conception through questioning the classical notion of truth and revisiting Kant’s theory of transcendental knowledge. (shrink)

According to Ibn Khaldūn, man is a social entity deeply influenced by the geo-economics-politics of the environment in which he lives. The effect is seen as so strong that nearly all of these structures in their relationship to human beings are dominated by it. In this system, we see human beings as a creature who is both able to adapt himself to the environment and able to evolve in this harmony. From the perspective of Ibn Khaldūn, man cannot be evaluated (...) or defined separately from the environmental conditions, the technique and architecture he has developed. Ibn Khaldūn sees the primary source of this change to be the desire to make life both more prosperous and bearable. Therefore, the most natural motivations that affect man’s desire to alter the natural world are the environmental challenges that he encounters. The challenges that are imposed upon man in the natural world are those that have led to human progress. From badāwa (nomadic society) to ḥaḍāra (sedentary society) and so to the ceaseless drive of human progress that has served to make life more endurable, every effort in this sense leads to a physical and moral loosening as the incessant struggle to survive that defines human existence is made more bearable. Physical slack by breaking the resistance of man to resist the environmental conditions; and moral looseness by making man more vulnerable to the temptation of desires, pleasures and welfare that are the cause of moral dilemmas. Ibn Khaldūn’s moral thought with its social, political, and other fields of application are all contexts that enable an understanding of the devaluation of money-hedonist morality in all ways. This article aims to analyze the social, political and economic dilemmas and challenges that the capitalist, consumption-based money-hedonist morality (obesity, social media addiction, consumption, and moral devaluation in the face of financial, virtual and imagined valuations, etc.) from the perspective of Ibn Khaldūn. Summary: Man is endowed with both good and evil. Ibn Khaldūn notes that man tends to misuse these two orientations with a higher inclination towards evil, and that social conditions have an effect on this. He sees another characteristic of man, that they develop habits; accordingly, man is the child of his habits. Habits are second nature to man and affects all of his perceptions, particularly notions concerning truth. At the same time, human beings are under the constant influence of both habits, culture, and climate and geography; and all of these together affect our ethics, psychology and characteristics. Thus, man is a historical, social being that is changed, transformed and determined by adapting to these cultural, social, political and ecological conditions. The concept of Money-Hedonism is one that we have created by combining the terms monetarism, an economic concept, and hedonism, a concept in moral philosophy; the resulting term we seek to produce essentially translates as the adoration of Money. As is well known, hedonism refers to a philosophy of life that has its origins in the ancient Greek world which sees the purpose of life as one in which the pursuit of pleasure is the highest good. Whereas, Monetarism is an American-based economic view developed by Milton Friedman in 1970, linking all the balance in the economy to the supply and demand of money. According to this, the demand for money is operation, precaution and motives of speculation of individuals the amount of money they want to keep in cash on them. The power of an exchange tool increases with the amount and quality of what it is achievable in its utilization. In this respect, money has been an unprecedented source of power in modern society as a means by which change can be achieved. The increase in the power of money as an effective means as manifesting power has led to a socio-cultural and socio-economic superstructure around this power. In the life of an individual that is part of such a culture and is unable to isolate himself from the economy in which he lives, the values that can be expressed with money are consequently formed. In this structure, since the measure of life is money, money determines the quality of human life and human pleasure to a far greater degree than at any time in history. Thus, those living in this age have developed a new moral philosophy of value formed by the combination of these two concepts (monetarism and hedonism), which we have defined as Money-Hedonism. The money-hedonist individual is one that is in love with money, the joy of having it, the pleasure of using it, who desires it with immeasurable passion and ambition and is willing to use all legitimate and illegitimate methods of obtaining it. The most prominent characteristics of this type of individual is egoism, a desire to possess, hatred and mistrust. Ibn Khaldūn argues that the inhabitants of a city that live a settled life and who are living in the city have become economically prosperous and absorbed by consumption and pleasure, and, consequently morally degenerate as a result of the abuse of their evil nature. As can be understood from Ibn Khaldūn’s explanations, the basic element that determines the transition of people from the badāwi way of life to ḥaḍāri (settled) is the change in the livelihoods and related needs. He perceives this change as progressing from necessity to luxury, and, with this change, ethical concern in the nature of people being replaced by aesthetic care. In this way, since aesthetic concern reveals the dissatisfaction of the human self, man always pursues what is perceived to be better and more beautiful, and therefore he easily tends to any malignancy that may disrupt his religious and worldly peace. The ḥaḍāra community of Ibn Khaldūn versus the badāwa represent a modern society with a much more heterogeneous population, with a significant increase in lifestyle diversity along with urbanization. However, the determinative effect of the relationship with nature or the way in which society engage in economic activities have not changed. While modern people are urbanized, they are also heterogeneously shaped by psycho-social necessities demanded by urbanization. Man has created a new socio-psychological condition that not only affects the socio-economic but the way of forming a relationship through the accelerated development of new communication methods, facilitating access to information, and the opening of new methods of communication field between institutions. While man’s connection to nature has become disconnected, he no longer perceives himself as human being in nature but as a human within the city, the individual urban life and the law define this perception. The rupture from nature has created an inevitable result of alienation to nature as well as the estrangement of man with his own nature. The liberal policies adopted with capitalism have encouraged competition and free entrepreneurship. In the time that Ibn Khaldūn lived, man who created himself with his struggle in the nature brings himself / herself into the economic structure of competition in the modern period. Unlike in more traditional societies of the past, the modern way of life not only expresses itself in our new way of life and moral values, but also by statistical values. The exploitative and mathematical world, which forms the current economic science, shapes the socio-economic and socio-psychological structure of modern man. It is understood that the life brought by luxury renders the dynamic, subjective, disciplined sense of morality dysfunctional by destroying the moral values of man, particularly by reducing their feeling of shame. As a result, while the world of value of money-hedonism is solid, materialistic and cold; man in trying to exist in this world of value carries a flexible, spiritual and emotional nature. As such, human beings are pushed into social anomaly situations such as a constant conflict, dilemma, suicide, insecurity and solitude in this world of value. (shrink)

The article discusses the place of leisure in Hans Blumenberg’s philoso- phical anthropology, focusing on “Theorie der Unbegrifflichkeit” (2007). According to Blumenberg, the tradition of philosophical anthropology unjustly reduces human rationality to the attempt of self-preservation. Not only is the actual process of anthropogenesis better described as led by a logic of prevention, not of preservation. Sedentary life, product of preventive behavior, not only secures survival but grants leisure as the condition of culture. Yet cultural practices, although an eminent product (...) of human rationality, cannot be explained by the logic of either self- preservation or prevention. Blumenberg thus argues that within philosophical anthropology, rationality can best be explained in is orientation towards happiness, an orientation encompassing not only preventive, conceptual forms of reason, but also contemplative, non-conceptual uses, such as in myth and mysticism. As the condition for articulating a self-understanding more adequate than self-preservation or prevention, leisure thus assumes a central place in determining human nature. It is in leisure that rationality is experienced as a source of happiness. (shrink)

Following Kenya’s independence in 1963, scientists converged on an ecologically sensitive area in southern Kenya on the northern slope of Mt. Kilimanjaro called Amboseli. This region is the homeland of the Ilkisongo Maasai who grazed this ecosystem along with the wildlife of interest to the scientists. Biologists saw opportunities to study this complex community, an environment rich in biological diversity. The Amboseli landscape proved to be fertile ground for testing new methods and lines of inquiry in the biological sciences that (...) were generalizable and important for shaping natural resource management policies in Kenya. However, the local community was in the midst of its own transformation from a primarily transhumant lifestyle to a largely sedentary one, a complex political situation between local and national authorities, and the introduction of a newly educated generation. This article examines the intersection of African history and field science through the post-colonial Africanization of Kenyan politics, the broadening of scientific practices in Amboseli in previously Western-occupied spaces to include Kenyan participants, and an increasing awareness of the role of local African contexts in the results, methods, and implications of biological research. “Africanization” as an idea in the history of science is multifaceted encompassing not just Africans in the scientific process, but it needs an examination of the larger political and social context on both a local and national level. (shrink)

This publication is an abridged translation of two lectures given by James Scott, a Sterling Professor of Political Science and Anthropology at Yale University, within «The Tanner Lectures» project as the Director of the Agrarian Studies Program and a leading expert in the study of peasantry of the Southeast Asia and Africa. Seeking to answer the question why throughout the entire course of human history all states seemed to pursue in fact the only one goal – to ensure by all (...) possible means the sedentary life of their citizens – Scott suggests an «alternative» version of historical process. On the one hand, he rejects the dominant «civilizational narrative» about the backwardness, barbarity, savagery, and other derogatory features of non-state communities; on the other hand, he develops quite another model and interpretation of the first agrarian states emergence referring to exactly the same set of historical evidence. (shrink)

Graphical AbstractA hunter gatherer in our evolutionary history would have faced many threats when physically active, including the risks of predation, snakebite and fractured limbs. In article number 1900156, John R. Speakman argues that these threats in our evolutionary past selected us to be as sedentary as possible. Image credit: Stephanie Summers.

This chapter examines the slave trade in north-western Ghana during the final decades of the nineteenth century and, more specifically, the history and archaeology of the defensive site of Yalingbong occupied by the community of Kpan/Dolbizan during a time known as the ‘Babatunik Wars’, when the Zaberma leader, Babatu, and his band of raiders waged war upon the region. Here, the documents produced by the colonial officers in the final years of the nineteenth century, and the traditions preserved in the (...) village today, speak to the complexity of the social, political, and economic relationships that existed between networks of sedentary agricultural communities, the bands of slave raiders, and the French and German officers. (shrink)

Is shadowboxing an effective form of functional exercise? What physiological and morphological changes result from an exercise program based exclusively on shadowboxing for 3 weeks? To date, no empirical research has focused specifically on addressing these questions. Since mixed martial arts (MMA) is the fastest growing sport in the world, and since boxing and kickboxing fitness classes are among the most popular in gyms and fitness clubs worldwide, the lack of research on shadowboxing and martial arts-based fitness programs in the (...) extant literature is a shortcoming that the present article aims to address. This case study involved a previously sedentary individual engaging in an exercise program based exclusively on shadowboxing for 3 weeks. Body composition and heart rate data were collected before, throughout, and upon completion of the 3-week exercise program to determine the effectiveness of shadowboxing for functional fitness purposes. An original shadowboxing program prepared by an Everlast Master Instructor and NASM Certified Personal Trainer (NASM-CPT) and Performance Enhancement Specialist (NASM-PES) was used for this 3-week period. The original shadowboxing program with goals, techniques, and combinations to work on throughout the 3-week program is included in this article. This case study demonstrates that a 3-week exercise program based exclusively on shadowboxing can increase aerobic capacity, muscle mass, bone mass, basal metabolic rate, and daily calorie intake, and decrease resting heart rate, fat mass, body fat percentage, and visceral fat rating in a previously sedentary individual. The results of this research demonstrate that shadowboxing can be a safe and effective form of exercise leading to morphological and physiological improvements including fat loss and increased aerobic capacity. The results of this research also demonstrate that the Tanita BC-1500 is a reliable tool for individuals to evaluate their own fitness progress over time. (shrink)

The article proposes a phenomenological and semiotic theoretical framework for the intelligibility of the meaning of belonging, one of the most fundamental concepts in present-day cultures and societies. After defining belonging as a spatial enunciation that brings about 1) the frontiers of a space of belonging; 2) the consequent opposition between an environment of belonging and one of non-belonging; and 3) the relation between, on the one hand, the subject of enunciation and, on the other hand, the opposition /environment of (...) belonging/ versus /environment of non-belonging/, the article articulates a typology of “figures of crossing,” in which belonging is manifested through the narrative dialectics between placement and displacement. In the theoretical framework of tensive phenomenology and semiotics, four macro-regimes of belonging are singled out: “sedentary estrangement,” “nomadic belonging,” “nomadic estrangement,” and “sedentary belonging.” Moreover, four semantic paths dynamically representing the transition between these regimes are identified: “exile/invasion,” “cosmopolitanism/curiosity,” “acclimation/tolerance,” and “alienation/suspicion.” In the conclusion, the theoretical framework developed by the article is proposed as instrument for the analysis of the “rhetorics of belonging” in present-day cultures and societies. (shrink)

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari redefine the relation between the state and its war machine. Far from being a part of the state, warriers are nomads who always come from the outside and keep threatening the authority of the state. In this daring essay inspired by Nietzsche, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari redefine the relation between the state and its war machine. Far from being a part of the state, warriers are nomads who always come from the outside and keep (...) threatening the authority of the state. In the same vein, nomadic science keeps infiltrating royal science, undermining its axioms and principles. Nomadology is a speedy, pocket-sized treatise that refuses to be pinned down. Theorizing a dynamic relationship between sedentary power and "schizophrenic lines of flight," this volume is meant to be read in transit, smuggled into urban nightclubs, offices, and subways. Deleuze and Guattari propose a creative and resistant ethics of becoming-imperceptible, strategizing a continuous invention of weapons on the run. An anarchic bricolage of ideas uprooted from anthropology, aesthetics, history, and military strategy, Nomadology carries out Deleuze's desire to "leave philosophy, but to leave it as a philosopher.". (shrink)

A vision of the city as a web of interactive, informational networks that turn our world into a prison-house of illusory transcendence. “Where does the city without gates begin? Perhaps inside that fugitive anxiety, that shudder that seizes the minds of those who, just returning from a long vacation, contemplate the imminent encounter with mounds of unwanted mail or with a house that's been broken into and emptied of its contents. It begins with the urge to flee and escape for (...) a second from an oppressive technological environment, to regain one's senses and one's sense of self.” —from Lost Dimension Originally written in French in 1983, Lost Dimension remains a cornerstone book in the work of Paul Virilio: the one most closely tied to his background as an urban planner and architect, and the one that most clearly anticipates the technologically wired urban space we live in today: a city of permanent transit and internalized borders, where time has overtaken space, and where telecommunications has replaced both our living and our working environments. We are living in the realm of the lost dimension, where the three-dimensional public square of our urban past has collapsed into the two-dimensional interface of the various screens that function as gateways to home, office, and public spaces, be they the flat-screen televisions on our walls, the computer screens on our desktops, or the smartphones in our pockets. In this multidisciplinary tapestry of contemporary physics, architecture, aesthetic theory, and sociology, Virilio describes the effects of today's hyperreality on our understanding of space. Having long since passed the opposition of city and country, and city and suburb, the speed-ridden city and space of today are an opposition between the nomadic and the sedentary: a web of interactive, informational networks that turn our world into a prison-house of illusory transcendence. (shrink)

Globally, there are calls to increase physical activity levels in relatively sedentary populations, including via physical activity programmes, often targeted at those body-selves deemed at risk of ‘sedentariness’. Despite the salience of sensory pleasures and displeasures in engagement with (and abandonment of) these programmes, the sensory, embodied experiences of participation remain under-researched. Here, we draw on findings from a two-year ethnographic study of a national programme in Wales, which used the aesthetic attractions of ‘natural’ outdoor environments to encourage and (...) sustain physical activity. Employing insights from phenomenological sociology, we explore the programme participants’ (n=146) lived experiences, analysed via a phenomenological lens, cohering around a panoply of sensory pleasures and displeasures, and somatic learning that is shaped and reshaped by weather encounters. (shrink)

Obesity may be the most difficult and elusive public health problem this country has ever encountered. Unlike the classical infectious diseases and plagues that killed millions in the past, it is not caused by deadly viruses or bacteria of a kind amenable to vaccines for prevention, nor are there many promising medical treatments so far. While diabetes, heart disease, and kidney failure can be caused by obesity, it is easier to treat those conditions than one of their causes. I call (...) obesity elusive partly because of the disturbingly low success rate in treating it, but also because it requires changing the patterns, woven deeply into our social fabric, of food and beverage commerce, personal eating habits, and sedentary lifestyles. It also raises the most basic ethical and policy questions: how far can government and business go in trying to change behavior that harms health, what are the limits of market freedom for industry, and how do we look upon our bodies and judge those of others?. (shrink)

§1 The Disjunctive Conception of Experience Descartes was surely right that while normal waking experience, dreams and hallucinations are characteristically distinguished at a purely phenomenological level, — by contrasts of spatial perspective, coherence, clarity of image, etc., — it is not essential that they be so.1 What is it like for someone who dreams that he is sitting, clothed in his dressing gown, in front of his fire can in principle be subjectively indistinguishable from what it is like to perceive (...) that one is doing so, fully conscious and awake. The same holds for multi-sense hallucination and, it is assumed, would hold of the experience of an envatted brain in the usual postulated scenario. This thought — that normal perceptual experience allows in principle of perfect phenomenological counterfeit — is, to the best of my knowledge, nowhere seriously challenged in John McDowell's writings.2 What he rejects is an idea that builds upon and would be potentially explanatory of it: the Lockean idea that, as far as the states enjoyed by the experiencing subject are concerned, there is actually no generic distinction between dream, hallucination, and wakeful perception: — that one and the same type of state of consciousness is involved in all three cases, and that which (if any) of the three a particular occurrence of the type falls under is a matter of how it is caused. On this model, the distinction between Descartes' notional fully lucid dream and the corresponding raft of perceptions of his dressing-gowned, sedentary state is like that between a certain kind of sunburn and nettle rash. For Disjunctivism, however, the Lockean — as McDowell likes to say, “Highest Common Factor” — conception of perceptual experience and its potential counterfeits is a conceptual error. There is no single type of state of consciousness present in each of dreaming, perceiving and hallucinating, whose instances fall under one or other of those characterisations purely by virtue of their aetiology.. (shrink)

College students have taken part in less and less physical activities as a result of the common static lifestyle in recent years, lowering the level of motor function. This phenomenon has been a source of concern for schools and the government, and it is necessary to take corresponding measures to change it. The general motor function level of Chinese college students is explored first based on artificial intelligence and the human–computer interaction technology. The Physical Activity Questionnaire for College Students is (...) compiled by referring to the International Physical Activity Questionnaire, and 561 students from colleges in Tianjin province are assessed based on the functional movement screen. Spearman correlation and multivariate regression analysis are used to analyze the correlation between the motor function and physical activity status. In terms of lunch break frequency, the proportion of students having one to two lunch breaks in a week is the highest ; in terms of the frequency of doing moderate physical exercise, the proportion of students doing moderate physical exercise for 1–2 days in a week is the highest ; in terms of the frequency of doing heavy physical exercise, the proportion of students doing heavy exercise for 1–2 days in a week is the highest ; in terms of the sedentary time, the proportion of students with sedentary time more than 5 h in a day is the highest ; in terms of eye use time, the proportion of students with 8–10 h eye use time in a day is the highest. Besides, in terms of the FMS score, the proportion of students with 13–15 FMS is the highest. The hurdle step, straight knee lift, and body rotation stability have a relatively low proportion among the three-point items. There is a positive correlation between motor function score with the time of moderate exercise and the time of heavy exercise. College students generally have insufficient rest time, long eye use time, and long sitting time, leading to a low level of motor function, manifested by an asymmetry between both sides of the body and poor trunk stability. It is recommended to add hurdling steps, straight knee lifts, and body rotation stability tests to college physical education courses. (shrink)