Physical Activity and the Ageing Body

Palmer, Victoria J.; Tulle, Emmanuelle; Bowness, James

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-71291-8_26

Cited by 8 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The concept of career is not meant to be normative: it is a heuristic device which makes explicit what it takes to become and remain physically active. Previous research (Hénaff-Pineau, 2009; Dionigi, 2015; Palmer et al ., 2018) has shown that becoming and remaining physically active takes many forms and can take place at different points across the lifecourse. However, typologies of physical activity in later life overlook the dynamic processes which enable these different modalities to emerge on a day-to-day basis, as Phoenix and Bell (2019) have shown and over a longer range.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Physical activity can be understood as a social field because as Bourdieu (1984) has shown, the propensity to be physically active has a class orientation. It also reflects norms associated with gender (Semerjian 2018), age (Palmer, Tulle and Bowness 2018) and ethnicity (Victor 2018), influencing whether and how we take part in physical activity. Thus, individuals are embedded in a range of norms with which they must contend.…”

Section: The Complexities Of Career Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But this does not necessarily account for how people deal with social change nor with how people contend with demands for them to change their dispositions (Tulle, 2017) or how they justify their practices (Boltanski and Thévenot, 2006). This is what we mean when we posit that our dispositions to physical activity lie at the confluence of diachronic and synchronic forces (Tulle, 2017; Palmer et al ., 2018). The concept of career enables us to bridge the gap between structure and agency.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hénaff-Pineau (2018) has demonstrated how engagement in physical activity reflects prevalent forms of socialisation into normative embodiment, gender norms, public policy and lifecourse norms. We have also previously identified physical activity participation as functional, sporting or performative in relation to the different meanings that social actors themselves attach to their practice (Palmer et al ., 2018). What is emerging is that physical activity careers can take a variety of forms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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(Re)conceptualising physical activity participation as career

2019

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Physical activity is increasingly positioned as playing an important role in preventing and mitigating many of the decrements associated with biological ageing. As a result, public health messages encourage older people to remain active in later life. Despite this, physical activity participation rates among older adults are low. This may be in part related to the conventional approach to understanding physical activity participation as a product of motivation. We contend that this approach does not allow for a deeper exploration of the wider structural, historical and discursive contexts in which physical activity participation occurs. Therefore, we propose that physical activity can be reconceptualised as a career. Through a synthesis of findings from four studies exploring physical activity experiences in later life, we demonstrate that beginning and maintaining a physical activity career requires a disposition towards physical activity, the legitimation of physically active practices and dealing with contingencies. In addition, we demonstrate that maintaining a physical activity career requires investment and deliberation to adapt physical activity practices continually within an individual's own personal biography. As such, we conclude that current strategies to promote physical activity to older adults are unlikely to result in increased levels of participation. To promote physical activity to older adults an understanding of how structural, cultural and historical contexts influence participation is needed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Complexities Of Career Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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(Re)conceptualising physical activity participation as career

2019

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“…There has already been considerable work published showing how issues of distinction relate to physical health and of the way in which the body becomes a project on its own (Williams, 1995; Cockerham et al ., 1997; Frew and McGillivray, 2005; Korp, 2008; Collyer et al , 2015; Higgs and Gilleard, 2015). Notions of distinction have been identified in healthy ageing discourses as individuals seek to prove that they are actively resisting decline (Allain and Marshall, 2017; Palmer et al ., 2018). It must also be noted that the distinction practices we are drawing attention to are not ones primarily of social class, rather they are about rejecting a ‘discreditable’ identity defined by cognitive decline and dependency.…”

Section: Using Distinction To Understand Practices Of Prevention In Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive decline and distinction: a new line of fracture in later life?

2019

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Cognitive decline and dementia have become major concerns for many individuals reaching later life within contemporary Western societies. This fear of decline is central to the social divide between the third age embodying ideals of maintained health, activity and lifestyle choices, and the fourth age, a social imaginary encompassing the irreversible decline associated with ageing. In this article, we explore how brain-training technologies have become successful by relying on tensions between the third and fourth ages. We review current debates on the concepts contained in brain training and examine the emphasis on the moral virtue of ‘training the brain’ in later life as an extension of fitness and health management. We underline the limited consideration given to social positioning within old age itself in the literature. We further argue that using brain-training devices can support a distancing from intimations of dementia; a condition associated with an ‘ageing without agency’. Drawing on Bourdieu, we use the concept of distinction to describe this process of social positioning. We discuss the impact that such ‘technologies of distinction’ can have on people with dementia by ‘othering’ them. We conclude that the issue of distinction within later life, particularly within the field of cognitive decline, is an important aspect of the current culture of active cognitive ageing.

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Highland Games as serious leisure: becoming a Masters athlete

Bowness

2019

Leisure Studies

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In a context of successful ageing discourse, a growing number of older adults are turning to competitive sport. The phenomenon known as Masters sport is a form of serious leisure that challenges stereotypes of ageing. Contemporary research has explored how individuals become Masters athletes in a variety of sports, focusing upon on the mainstream sports of running, swimming and tennis. Research has yet to explore how people become involved in activities that have less universal appeal. This article begins filling this gap by examining how Masters athletes became involved in the Highland Games, a sport contextualised by its links to Scotland and its diaspora. A pragmatic theoretical approach lending from three existing models is used to make sense of how people enter the Games. Drawing on semistructured life history interviews with 19 Masters athletes, this case study details two pathways to the Highland Games. The article describes how, unlike previous research, most athletes enter the sport later in life and are either drawn to competition through an emergent identification with Scotland or a diversification of bodily dispositions that existed before Games participation. The article concludes that theoretical flexibility is required to understand better the socio-cultural factors that influence Masters sport participation.

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Physical Activity and the Ageing Body

Cited by 8 publications

References 24 publications

(Re)conceptualising physical activity participation as career

(Re)conceptualising physical activity participation as career

Cognitive decline and distinction: a new line of fracture in later life?

Highland Games as serious leisure: becoming a Masters athlete

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