Mental health and physical health

Michael Parsonage explores the impact on health outcomes and costs of mental and physical ill health. Michael is Senior Policy Adviser, Centre for Mental Health, and Visiting Senior Fellow, PSSR

Gender differences in physical performance characteristics of competitive surfers

Competitive surfing is judged on the performance and complexity of innovative and progressive manoeuvres. As such, surfers require the physical attributes of strength and power in both the upper and lower-body in order to facilitate performance. To date, there remains limited research pertaining to the physical performance characteristics of competitive female surfers, making it difficult to quantify the current gender gap in performance attributes. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis was fivefold: (1) to describe and compare the gender differences in physical performance characteristics of competitive surfers; (2) to investigate the reliability and validity of the isometric push-up (IPU), dynamic push-up (DPU) and force plate pop-up (FP POP) measures of upper-body strength qualities; (3) to examine the gender differences in the dynamic strength index (DSI) and dynamic skill deficit (DSD); assessing upperbody dynamic and sports-specific strength relative to maximal isometric strength; (4) to investigate the gender differences in kinetic and kinematic variables of the countermovement jump (CMJ) and squat jump (SJ); and (5) to assess the gender differences in resistance training self-efficacy (SE) and outcome expectancy (OE). The aforementioned studies provide strength and conditioning practitioners, as well as surf coaches, with the data to make evidence-based decisions in the application of training to the female surfers and bridge the gender gap that is apparent within competitive surfing. Study one informed competitive male surfers had more developed physical performance characteristics in the upper and lower-body than female surfers. The findings of this study highlighted the performance benefits that female surfers may experience if such physical qualities are targeted through structured and periodised training. Study two demonstrated the IPU, DPU and FP POP to be reliable measure of upper-body isometric, dynamic and sports-specific strength. Furthermore, the results of this study identified maximal upper-body strength to be strongly associated with the ability to apply force dynamically (DPU and FP POP). These findings apply novel methodologies, in order to better understand the upper-body sports-specific strength qualities of surfers. Study three reported no gender differences in DSI or DSD ratios. However, competitive male surfers applied greater upper-body isometric and dynamic PF application, and greater sport-specific force application (FP POP). These findings, in conjunction with study two, suggest female surfers may benefit from improving their upper-body maximal strength, thus facilitating their ability to apply force in a sports-specific context. Study four demonstrated competitive male surfers achieved an increased jump height by applying a significantly larger normalised concentric impulse in both the CMJ and SJ. These findings may be attributed to the greater countermovement depth exhibited by males, enabling a greater distance over which force can be applied. Study five found no significant difference in resistance training SE or OE between competitive male and female surfers, with similarly high values being reported for both genders. Therefore, resistance training SE and OE in the examined cohort does not seem to be a confounding variable that interacts to elicit the physiological gender differences of competitive surfers

Fascination and fear: Responses to early jazz in Britain

Jazz was a source of deep controversy and debate in 1920s Britain. Whilst it was widely criticised in letters written to national newspapers, it was at the same time enjoying great popularity with the equally prolifically reported ‘Bright Young Things’. An understanding of jazz as black music, even though it was relatively rarely represented and experienced in Britain as such in terms of live and recorded performance, was vital in provoking these and other responses to the music. It can be seen that the basic ideology of jazz as black music was more clearly understood than the precise nature of the music itself. Developments in recording technology did allow greater ease of access to black American music in Britain, and this provoked some re-evaluation of jazz as critics became acquainted with its musical qualities. However, it can be seen that the earlier understanding and reception of jazz as black music continued to influence the way in which it was received and critiqued. This chapter concludes with close analysis of the reactions to Louis Armstrong’s first appearances in Britain in 1932

The popularity of jazz–an unpopular problem: the significance of 'Swing when you're winning'

Robbie Williams' album Swing when you–re winning, released in November 2001, is primarily significant as a fascinating artefact of popular music in the early twenty-first century. The album contains fourteen 'covers' of songs made famous by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jnr. and Dean Martin and one original song written by Williams with his long-term collaborator Guy Chambers. The 2001 Christmas number one, Somethin' Stupid, on which Williams' duetted with Nicole Kidman, was drawn from Swing when you–re winning, which was also number one in the album chart for several weeks over the Christmas period. This paper responds to the challenge of writers such as Robert Walser and Derek Scott, who have respectively called for serious evaluation of the popular mainstream and the consideration of mass consumerism as a creative act. This paper develops a methodology for critical analysis of popular music by breaking down the concept of 'significance' into importance (to whom and why), meaning (socially located and constructed) which mediates in the final aspect of meaningfulness (communication and reception). In addition, this paper will engage with the theoretical writings of Allan Moore, Theodor Adorno, Lucy Green, Albin Zak III and Krin Gabbard

Diagnosis and Management of Epilepsy Adult Patient

S. Afr. Med. J., 48, 841 (1974)

A critical reassessment of the reception of early jazz in Britain

The Original Dixieland Jazz Band's visit in 1919–1920 has been well documented as the beginning of jazz in Britain. This article illuminates a more complex evolution of the image and presence of jazz in Britain through consideration of the cultural and musical antecedents of the genre, including minstrel shows and black musical theatre, within the context of musical life in Britain in the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. The processes through which this evolution took place are considered with reference to the ways in which jazz was introduced to Britain through imported revue shows and sheet music. It is an extremely significant but often neglected fact that another group of American musicians, Will Marion Cook's Southern Syncopated Orchestra, also came to Britain in 1919. Remarkably, extensive comparisons of the respective performances and reception of the ODJB and the SSO have not been made in the available literature on jazz. Examination of the situation of one white and one black group of American musicians performing contemporaneously in London is extremely informative, as it evidences the continuing influence of the antecedents of jazz and the importance of both groups in shaping perceptions of jazz in Britain