Measuring Subjective Wellbeing for Public Policy: Recommendations on Measures

The measurement of wellbeing is central to public policy. There are three uses for any measure: 1) monitoring progress; 2) informing policy design; and 3) policy appraisal. There has been increasing interest in the UK and around the world in using measures of subjective wellbeing (SWB) at each of these levels. There is much less clarity about precisely what measures of SWB should be used. We distinguish between three broad types of SWB measure: 1) evaluation (global assessments); 2) experience (feelings over short periods of time); and 3) 'eudemonic' (reports of purpose and meaning, and worthwhile things in life).

Reduced-Exertion High-Intensity Interval Training (REHIT): A Feasible Approach for Improving Health and Fitness?

In recent years, research investigating the dose-response to sprint interval training (SIT) has provided evidence that the number and duration of repetitions in a SIT session can be reduced whilst preserving the beneficial health-related adaptations. Together this research has led to the development of protocols involving minimal doses of SIT: regularly performing just two or three 20-30-s all-out sprints in a 10-min training session has been shown to elicit beneficial metabolic and cardiovascular adaptations. These SIT protocols, which we originally termed ‘reduced exertion HIT’ (or REHIT), have the potential to remove many of the common barriers associated with other SIT protocols, as well as with HIT and aerobic exercise. Here, we critically review the evidence on the efficacy, feasibility and acceptability, and effectiveness of REHIT for improving health and fitness

Those Apples Don’t Taste Like Oranges! Why ‘Equalising’ HIIT and MICT Protocols Does Not Make Sense

First paragraph: We read with interest the recent article by Andreato entitled ‘High-Intensity Interval Training: Methodological Considerations for Interpreting Results and Conducting Research’ [1]. We applaud the author’s call for greater clarity in defining and reporting high-intensity interval training (HIIT) protocols; this is much needed to move the field forward. However, we dispute the author’s principal claim that to avoid bias when comparing HIIT with moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT), it is necessary to ‘equalise’ (match) sessions for energy expenditure (or workload performed, as a proxy for energy expenditure). Upon reading the article, we failed to find any sound justification for this assertion

Less pain, more gain – improving health and fitness with minimal exercise

First paragraph: When it comes to exercise, if there was a way to get more health benefits by doing less, then it’s likely a lot of people would be interested. This is probably the reason that high-intensity interval training (HIIT) gets a lot of attention. HIIT can improve health and fitness, but with much less time spent exercising. Much less time when compared with much lower intensity aerobic exercise, that is. Access this article on The Conversation website: https://theconversation.com/less-pain-more-gain-improving-health-and-fitness-with-minimal-exercise-7102

Linking vegetation change, carbon sequestration and biodiversity

1. Despite recent interest in linkages between above- and belowground communities and their consequences for ecosystem processes, much remains unknown about their responses to long-term ecosystem change. We synthesize multiple lines of evidence from a long-term ‘natural experiment’ to illustrate how ecosystem retrogression (the decline in ecosystem processes due to long-term absence of major disturbance) drives vegetation change, and thus aboveground and belowground carbon (C) sequestration, and communities of consumer biota. 2. Our study system involves 30 islands in Swedish boreal forest that form a 5000 year fire-driven retrogressive chronosequence. Here, retrogression leads to lower plant productivity and slower decomposition, and a community shift from plants with traits associated with resource acquisition to those linked with resource conservation. 3. We present consistent evidence that aboveground ecosystem C sequestration declines, while belowground and total C storage increases linearly for at least 5000 years following fire absence. This increase is driven primarily by changes in vegetation characteristics, impairment of decomposer organisms and absence of humus combustion. 4. Data from contrasting trophic groups show that during retrogression, biomass or abundance of plants and decomposer biota decreases, while that of aboveground invertebrates and birds increases, due to different organisms accessing resources via distinct energy channels. Meanwhile, diversity measures of vascular plants and aboveground (but not belowground) consumers respond positively to retrogression. 5. We show that taxonomic richness of plants and aboveground consumers are positively correlated with total ecosystem C storage, suggesting that conserving old growth forests simultaneously maximizes biodiversity and C sequestration. However, we find little observational or experimental evidence that plant diversity is a major driver of ecosystem C storage on the islands relative to other biotic and abiotic factors. 6. Synthesis. Our study reveals that across contrasting islands differing in exposure to a key extrinsic driver (historical disturbance regime and resulting retrogression), there are coordinated responses of soil fertility, vegetation, consumer communities, and ecosystem C sequestration, which all feed back to one another. It also highlights the value of well replicated natural experiments for tackling questions about aboveground-belowground linkages over temporal and spatial scales that are otherwise unachievable