Participant profile and impacts of an Aboriginal healthy lifestyle and weight loss challenge over four years 2012-2015

OBJECTIVE: To explore participation, consistency of demographic and health profiles, and short-term impacts across six Aboriginal Knockout Health Challenge (KHC) team-based weight loss competitions, 2012 to 2015. METHODS: Data comprised one competition each from 2012 and 2013 and two per year in 2014 and 2015. We compared baseline and change (pre- to post-competition) in weight, fruit and vegetable consumption, physical activity and waist circumference (baseline only) across competitions using mixed models. RESULTS: Numbers of teams and participants increased from 2012 to 2015 from 13 and 324 to 33 and 830, respectively. A total of 3,625 participants registered, representing 2,645 unique people (25.4% repeat participation). Participants were mainly female and >90% were classified obese at baseline. Baseline weight and weight lost (between 1.9% and 2.5%) were significantly lower in subsequent competitions compared with the first. Improvements in fruit and vegetable consumption and physical activity were comparable across competitions. CONCLUSION: The KHC has increasing and sustained appeal among Aboriginal communities, attracting those at risk from lifestyle-associated chronic disease and effectively reducing weight and promoting healthy lifestyles in the short term. Implications for public health: Community-led programs generated by, and responsive to, Aboriginal Australians' needs can demonstrate consistent community reach and sustained program-level lifestyle improvements

Interdisciplinary research of medieval sacral architecture

The methodology is divided into three basic areas of the cognitive process of sacral architecture, which differ according to the nature of the studied sources. I. Problems of knowledge of sacral architecture on the basis of written, cartographic and pictorial sources. II. Sacral architecture in terms of material sources of archaeological nature (artifacts, ecofacts and their finds). III. Sacral architecture on the basis of material sources of a building nature, examined by a building historical survey. These areas are accompanied by subchapters devoted to other methods, other cognitive and documentation processes. A necessary part are also small excursion chapters, in which specific examples from research practice are described