Physical School Education, and Active Living Lifelong

The aim of this clause is to analyze the purpose of school-basedextracurricular initiatives in facilitating immediate and long-termpositive impact on physical action, healthy behavior, and obesity inyoungsters. A critique of the role of various sports-relatedinitiatives that have been developed to address the obesity epidemiccurrently facing children within the United States is provided, witha specific emphasis on intramural sports as a preferred mechanismto encourage long-term participation in athletics and physicalactivity pursuits. The article presents support for the notion that aphysical education curriculum that includes Intramurals before,during, and after school can help kids learn the skills to enjoy takingpart in a diversity of sports designed to facilitate lifelong activeliving.Granting to the Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Prevent andDecrease Overweight and Obesity, the associated cost of beingoverweight or obese was more than $117 billion in the year 2000(U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001). In a latereview, Finkelstein, Ruhm, and Kosa (2005) outlined theseeconomic causes and consequences, concluding that governmentinterventions are required. The percent of overweight adults, teens,and children have increased so significantly that the CDC andnumerous other federal, province, and local authorities haveidentified the reduction of obesity as one of the nation’s top healthprioritie

Preparing Students as Leaders with a Global Mindset: A Study Abroad Phenomenological Case Study

Research continues to stress the importance for college students to graduate with the skills to be successful as global-minded leaders in today’s evolving workforce. Although the typical study abroad programs can address this, critics point to some limitations. First, most study abroad programs are short-term, limiting students’ ability to internalize and apply cultural context upon their return to the United States. Second, although universities and colleges state the importance of developing students' cultural competencies, few have intentionally incorporated best practices for study abroad. The purpose of this phenomenological case study, therefore, was to explore how nine students from six different disciplines perceived a unique study abroad experience, designed to address some of the typical study abroad limitations. This interdisciplinary program was designed to immerse students in three European countries while participating in a formal learning cohort program that incorporated cognitive, experiential, and humanistic methodologies. The study also explored what role cross-cultural partnerships with companies, organizations, and community leaders played in enhancing the students’ application and integration of developing themselves as global- minded citizen leaders in their field of study. Data were collected through informal interviews with all nine students and supporting data included field observations, rich text, and results from the Global Mindset Inventory®. Utilizing a hybrid-coding scheme, researchers found four themes that emerged, supporting the notion that the cross-cultural pedagogical framework enhanced students’ self-efficacy as global-minded citizens, resulting from their interdisciplinary international experiences

An Integrative Review of Youth Development Research in Selected United States Recreation Journals

Youth have been a focus of recreation and leisure programmers for over a century. During that time, assumptions have been made about the value of recreation for young people. More recently, a resurgence of interest has occurred related to positive youth development. The purpose of this paper is to describe the results of an integrative review done to examine research conducted with youth as a focal point in four prominent U.S. based recreation journals over the past 21 years (1985-2005). We sought to discern thematic patterns in topical areas and to review the approaches and methods used. Systematic content and thematic analyses of the Journal of Park and Recreation Administration, Therapeutic Recreation Journal, Leisure Sciences, and the Journal of Leisure Research were used. Findings showed that the research done about youth related to some aspect of recreation or leisure in the past ten years eclipsed what was done from 1985-1996. A variety of research methods were used with an equitable distribution of survey, literature reviews, experimental designs, and qualitative methods. The youth examined were primarily mixed gender groups, but boys were twice as likely to be studied as girls when single sex studies were undertaken. Most of the research was done with adolescent (ages 10-18 years) youth. Almost no research has been done in the recreation field related to early childhood (ages 1-4 years). The 11 major themes or topics that were studied in the past 21 years included: youth culture and leisure; leisure programming, treatment, and intervention; research, measurement, and evaluation; demographic factors; management, administration, and policy of youth programs; benefits of leisure for youth; youth and family leisure; recreation settings and leisure spaces; risk behaviors and delinquency; human development and developmental issues; and social behavior. In the integrative review, the focus on benefits and accountability relative to youth programs was obvious. The parallels between social change and youth development were also evident in the review. Recommendations for future research include more evidence-based work that links the program or intervention directly to youth development outcomes, as well as a focus on emerging topics such as physical inactivity and obesity in children, the influence of television and technology in general, youth sport, and the relationships youth have with nature and the outdoors

Youth Sport Market Segmentation with the Theory of Planned Behavior

Approximately half (54%) of all American youth between the ages of 6 -17 play in at least one organized sport (SGMA: Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, 2004). By adulthood; however, only 15.4% of American adults report that they participate in the same organized sport (SGMA, 2004). While this deficit can be explained by an expansion of alternate activities available to adults or a lack of continued opportunities, there is evidence that adult participation in sports and other leisure activities is significantly influenced by the repertoire of activities they participated in as children (Scott & Willits, 1989; 1998). Sport managers wound benefit from a more thorough understanding of the reasons for initial involvement and the intentions to continue participation in guiding future retention efforts

The salience of sport in cross-race friendship selection

In response to growing racial concerns, stakeholders have called for programs that facilitate positive cross-race interactions. Adolescence has been targeted as the most effective life stage to initiate programs promoting relationships. Since schools are one of the primary social influences on adolescent development, they have been emphasized as a particularly important setting for promoting intergroup contact. Sport plays an important role in the experiences of students, and contributes to intergroup relations within a school. The purpose of this study is to examine the unique effect of sport participation on cross-race friendship selection. Using data from Wave I of The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), mixed-effects regression models and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to assess the effects of sport participation on friendship heterogeneity. Overall, participation in sport activities did not significantly influence the racial heterogeneity of adolescent’s friendship networks

Integrated water resources management in North Georgia implications of wastewater management policy

Water management in the southeast, and particularly in Georgia, has become increasingly more complex due to rapid population growth, dwindling water supplies, water quality and instream flow concerns, and allocation disputes with neighboring states. The Georgia state legislature responded with two key initiatives: SB 130, passed in 2001, which formed the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District (MNGWPD), and HB 237, passed in 2004, which requires the development of a Comprehensive Statewide Water Plan (CSWP). In 2003, the MNGWPD adopted wastewater management, watershed protection, and water supply and conservation plans that will guide water resources in metropolitan Atlanta for the next 30 years. Implementation costs of the MNGWPD water and wastewater plans through 2030 has been estimated to total $60B. To conserve financial resources and encourage a sustainable development pattern, it is necessary to prioritize these investments, i.e., focus investments upon areas have the ability to increase population density due to the proximity of existing services. Currently, growth management policies in some jurisdictions encourage septic system development, increasing overall wastewater treatment costs and interfering with water management goals.Sponsored by: Georgia Environmental Protection Division U.S. Geological Survey, Georgia Water Science Center U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia Water Resources Institute The University of Georgia, Water Resources Facult

The state of play between managing major sport events and human rights:a scoping review

This scoping review integrates literature from diverse perspectives to better understand when and how management of major sport events promotes or harms human rights. The authors critically review 130 peer-reviewed English language articles to identify conceptual contributions to research and practice. The findings reveal that politics and political reform, legal frameworks, and organizational actions are crucial influences in when and how management of events promotes or harms human rights. The most frequently considered rights in the literature are: equality, human trafficking related, sport as a human right, worker rights, and freedom of residence. Activism for human rights stimulates change within relevant stakeholders via collaboration, naming and shaming, in-public debates, and media coverage. The committed, transparent, and inclusive consideration of human rights in all stages of managing sport events (from bid preparation, bidding, planning, and hosting to postevent leverage) may increase the likelihood that the event has social benefits

Prescribing Time in Nature for Human Health and Well-Being: Study Protocol for Tailored Park Prescriptions

BackgroundeHealth technologies offer an efficient method to integrate park prescriptions into clinical practice by primary health care (PHC) providers to help patients improve their health via tailored, nature-based health behavior interventions. This paper describes the protocol of the GoalRx Prescription Intervention (GPI) which was designed to leverage community resources to provide tailored park prescriptions for PHC patients.MethodsThe GPI study was designed as a 3-arm, multi-site observational study. We enrolled low-income, rural adults either at-risk of or living with hypertension or diabetes (n = 75) from Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) in two counties in North Carolina, USA into the 3-month intervention. Eligible participants self-selected to receive (1) a tailored park prescription intervention; (2) a tailored home/indoor PA prescription intervention; or (3) a healthy eating prescription (with no PA prescription beyond standard PA counseling advice that is already routinely provided in PHC) as the comparison group. The GPI app paired patient health data from the electronic health record with stated patient preferences and triggered app-integrated SMS motivation and compliance messaging directly to the patient. Patients were assessed at baseline and at a 3-month follow-up upon the completion of the intervention. The primary outcome (mean difference in weekly physical activity from baseline (T0) to post-intervention (T1) as measured by the Fitbit Flex 2) was assessed at 3 months. Secondary outcomes included assessment of the relationship between the intervention and biological markers of health, including body mass index (BMI), systolic and diastolic blood pressure, HbA1c or available glucose test (if applicable), and a depression screen score using the Patient Health Questionnaire 9. Secondary outcomes also included the total number of SMS messages sent, number of SMS messages responded to, number of SMS messages ignored, and opt-out rate.DiscussionThe goal was to create a protocol utilizing eHealth technologies that addressed the specific needs of rural low-income communities and fit into the natural rhythms and processes of the selected FQHC clinics in North Carolina. This protocol offered a higher standard of health care by connecting patients to their PHC teams and increasing patient motivation to make longer-lasting health behavior changes