Output that counts: pedometers, sociability and the contested terrain of older adult fitness walking

Conflicting experiences of health and habitus in a poor urban neighbourhood: A Bourdieusian ethnography

An ethnographic study of health and wellbeing was undertaken in a deprived urban neighbourhood in the UK Midlands. Drawing on Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, capital and field, we discerned three different, even conflicting, ways of understanding and acting on health: (i) older adults discussed their wellbeing in relation to the local context or field, walking the dog, helping at the community centre and visiting the off licence, (ii) young professionals and students who lived in the neighbourhood were oriented towards leisure facilities, career opportunities and supermarkets outside of the neighbourhood, disdaining local facilities and (iii) community activists and carers discussed health in terms of providing for others but not themselves. Bourdieu is frequently used in medical sociology to highlight how poor people's lifestyle is constrained by their habitus; we suggest paying more attention to its both enabling and differentiating contradictions as well as the constraints it entails. Empirically and in terms of health promotion findings suggest that supposedly healthy activities, such as going to the gym, may also be a means of rejecting the local community; similarly, older people's pottering about in the neighbourhood, which is not usually recognised as a healthy activity, may enhance wellbeing in this context.

Communal therapeutic mobility in group walking: A meta-ethnography

Increased attention to links between walking, health and wellbeing have contributed to a growth in the number of walking groups meeting on a regular basis to offer short, social walks. Walking group interventions are known to increase physical activity and to have wide-ranging health benefits, and there is evidence that drop out is generally low. The aim of this paper is to synthesise qualitative research on experiences and perceptions of group walking in order to develop a new conceptual understanding of the group walking experience. We conducted a systematic search of the literature and identified 22 such studies which we synthesised using meta-ethnography. Included studies were conducted in the UK, USA, Australia and Ireland. Most reported research was undertaken with outdoor walking groups, some of which catered specifically for people who shared a disease experience or a disability. A smaller number of studies examined indoor mall walking groups, while two looked at perceptions of non-participants of group walking as a potential activity. From the original constructs identified in the papers we derived five higher order constructs: seeking and enjoying health and fitness, attachment to walking, providing purpose and confidence, mobile companionship and a peaceful and contemplative shared respite from everyday life. We argue that participating in a walking group provides a set of experiences that together constitute a specific form of shared or communal therapeutic mobility that is not simply the accumulation of the constructs we have outlined. Rather, we suggest that an initial instrumental and disciplinary focus on health and fitness is transformed through the experience of group walking into a shared meaningful and enjoyable practice; an emergent communal therapeutic mobility, which recruits and retains large numbers of group walkers. However, this communal therapeutic mobility is not equally accessible to all.

Doing more with movement: constituting healthy publics in movement volunteering programmes

The recent phenomenon of movement volunteering programmes is a form of 'fitness philanthropy' that combines exercise with volunteering in order for physical activity to generate a more widely shared set of benefits. These newest practices of fitness philanthropy radically rework both exercise and volunteering through the ways in which these come together and take place outdoors and in the everyday spaces of the street or community. The paper explores these new practices through the movement volunteering programme 'GoodGym', in relation to the concept of 'healthy publics'. Fieldwork comprised ethnography, including participant observation, interviews, go-along interviews, conversations, photography and an end of fieldwork discussion workshop. We focus on the experiences of three different constituencies in GoodGym: the volunteers; the participants and passers-by; the space and atmosphere. The formation of these dynamic, multiple and shifting healthy publics emerge through the complex intersections of several processes. We draw particular attention to the centrality in the new fitness philanthropy practices of visibility and spectacle, sociality and merging mobilities in constituting healthy publics.

Changing emotional engagement with running through communal self-tracking: the implications of 'teleoaffective shaping' for public health

Emerging research explores the role of self-tracking in supporting healthy behaviour. Self-tracking comprises a number of interrelated practices; some individual some communal. In this article, we focus on practices that enable interaction between self-trackers through data sharing and communication around personal data. For public health, communal self-tracking has been explored for the additional benefits it provides in addition to self-knowledge. However, under-explored is the emotional entanglement of self-tracking and tracked activities, or the role of practitioners in the dynamic evolution of tracked practices. Qualitative, mixed methods data were collected from leisure-time runners in the SW England who self-track using social fitness app 'Strava', and were interpreted through the lens of practice theory. We find that communal self-tracking affords the active shaping of the emotion and purpose of running. This 'teleoaffective shaping' allows practitioners to negotiate and reconstitute appealing meanings associated with running to protect their practice loyalty. We identify three mechanisms for teleoaffective shaping afforded by Strava: labelling, reward and materialising effort. Findings advance our understanding of how social fitness apps work to retain practitioners of physically active leisure practices. Future research should further explore the multiple ways that associations with tracked physical activity evolve through entanglement with self-tracking practices.

Exercise Instructors for Older Adult Fitness: A Review of the Literature

Group-exercise instructors are a vital social determinant of exercise enjoyment, attendance, and adherence. Instructors also affect the degree to which physical cultures are socially inclusive. In order to elucidate the roles that instructors play in affecting these outcomes, we conducted a scoping review. Scoping reviews are a preliminary method for assessing the breadth and depth of existing literature in order to identify key themes and gaps therein. Based on Arksey and O'Malley's (2005) framework, we identified 52 articles and book chapters, 33 of which were older-adult specific, using a university search engine that simultaneously searches multiple databases. We conceptually mapped the literature, which revealed instructors' vital roles as: (1) constructors of group social cohesion, (2) cultural intermediaries, (3) competent practitioners, (4) leaders and communicators, and (5) educators. Of these, the instructor's educative role lacks empirical attention. We conclude with implications for future research, practice, and policy.

Tracked and fit: FitBits, brain games, and the quantified aging body

This paper explores the technical turn to new ways of quantifying and standardizing measurements of age as these intersect with discourses of anti-aging and speculative futures of 'smart' quantified aging bodies. Often couched in a metaphorical language of 'smart', 'fit', 'boosting' and 'optimizing', the aging body is emerging as a node for data collection, monitoring, and surveillance. The research is located in the current literature that links aging, bodies and technologies, with specific extended examples of wearable devices such as fitness trackers and digital exercises such as brain games designed for memory performance. Conclusions suggest that new technologies around aging and quantifiable fitness create an ambiguous image of the aging body and brain as both improvable and 'plastic' but also inevitably in decline.

The Social Relations of a Health Walk Group: An Ethnographic Study

It is already well established that regular walks are conducive to health and well-being. This article considers the production of social relations of regular, organized weekly group walks for older people. It is based on an ethnographic study of a Walking for Health group in a rural area of the United Kingdom. Different types of social relations are identified arising from the walk experience. The social relations generated are seen to be shaped by organizational factors that are constitutive of the walks; the resulting culture having implications for the sustainability of the experience. As there appears to be no single uniting theory linking group walk experiences to the production of social relations at this time, the findings are considered against therapeutic landscape, therapeutic mobility, and social capital theorizing. Finally, implications for the continuance of walking schemes for older people and for further research are considered.

'This really takes it out of you!' The senses and emotions in digital health practices of the elderly

Wearables, fitness apps and home-based monitoring technology designed to help manage chronic diseases are generally considered in terms of their effectiveness in saving costs and improving the health care system. This article looks, instead, at the digital health practices of persons older than 65 years; it considers their actual health practices, their senses and emotions. In a qualitative study 27 elderly persons were interviewed about their digital health practices and accompanied while using the devices. The findings show that digital technologies and ageing bodies are co-productive in performing specific modes of health and the ageing process. The study shows that digital technologies not only encourage the elderly to remain physically active and enable them to age in place, but also that the use of these technologies causes the elderly to develop negative emotions that stand in a charged relationship to ageing stereotypes. Thereby, the sense of seeing has been place in pole position, while the faculty for introspection declines. This means that age-related impaired vision can result in particularly severe consequences. In the discussion it is debated in which concrete ways that digital health technologies have had a negative impact. The sociotechnical practices associated with wearables conform to the primacy of preventing ageing; passive and active monitoring technologies appear as subsystems of risk estimation, which in turn regulates diverse practices. The conclusion highlights the interrelation between notions of successful ageing and the digital practices of the elderly.

Aging embodiment and the somatic work of getting into and out of a car

This study examines the embodied realities and sensory experience of vehicle ingress and egress from the point of view of older drivers. In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 women and three men, aged 57-81, and followed by ride-a-longs whereby the researcher observed participants in interaction with their automobile. Using the perspective of phenomenological gerontology and the concept of somatic work (Vannini, Waskul, & Gottschalk, 2012), older drivers are conceptualized as simultaneously sensing and making sense of somatic experience evoked by aging embodiment and the bodily movements required of entry and exit into an automobile. It is argued that older drivers acquire a sensory auto-biography of incorporated bodily memory regarding vehicle morphology and texture in their past and current life, which informs embodied capacities of movement, awareness, and response relative to practical knowledge about what is attainable (or unattainable) for a sensuous older body. Through reflective and reflexive engagement with the sensory realm and material world, participants report structuring their lives through the haptics of touch, adoption of somatic rules, consumerist practices, as well as, specialized bodily movements and footwork sequences to ensure safety and comfort when using their automobile.