Fresh air, sunshine and happiness: Millennials building health (salutogenesis) in leisure and nature (original) (raw)
Related papers
Leisure and health: conjoined and contested concepts
Annals of Leisure Research, 2019
This paper explores the various ideas, notions and conversations that underpin the leisure/health nexus and focuses on identifying the interrelatedness and synergies between these concepts. There are competing understandings of ‘health’ that underpin the domains of leisure. Within these disciplines there are contrasting discussions involving biological, economic, environmental, historical, medical, political, psychological and sociological ways of constructing meaning. These occur in the domains of bio-medical treatment and health promotion framed within embodiment and embodiment practice. The bio-medical domain frames ‘health’ as the prevention of disease/illness/injury and views ‘leisure’ as a tool through which to reduce risk. While 21st century health promotion posits ‘health’ more holistically, ‘leisure’ still often focuses on issues related to individual’s physical ‘health’. In reality leisure and health are complex concepts that exist within a system of ebbs and flows that impact each other in different ways depending on your point of view.
Leisure meets health: important intersections and alternative discourses
Annals of Leisure Research, 2020
While it is generally accepted in the leisure field that leisure has a role, and arguably a key one in wellness and wellbeing, this is largely at odds with the operations and funding frameworks of contemporary healthcare systems. Governments spend much less on leisure which involves social aspects of health than they do on healthcare systems which are focussed on biomedical interventions. Yet, many leisure and healthcare practitioners and academics are aware of the intersections between leisure, health and wellbeing and the aim of this edition was to offer a forum for overtly presenting these intersections. Here we set the scene for the papers in this special edition, summarizing the contribution of each paper to progressing discussions regarding the intersections of leisure and health and suggesting future directions for exploration.
Purveyors of One Health: The Ecological Imperative Driving the Future of Leisure Services
Leisure Sciences
The coronavirus pandemic, for all of its damage to human health and well-being, has brought to light the wisdom underlying the idea of One Health, whose advocates reason that health is a reciprocal relationship between our species and the environment that sustains us. What is good for people should also be good for the environment, and what is good for the environment should also be good for people. Their preferred future is one in the same. As the recent days, weeks, and months have also shown, leisure is not necessarily a cure for what ails us. Indeed, leisure pursuits may have contributed to the pandemic's spread. What, then, are we to make of leisure in the time of the coronavirus? We believe it is a fundamental lesson in ecology.
Annals of Leisure Research Leisure and health: conjoined and contested concepts
Annals of Leisure Research, 2019
This paper explores the various ideas, notions and conversations that underpin the leisure/health nexus and focuses on identifying the interrelatedness and synergies between these concepts. There are competing understandings of ‘health’ that underpin the domains of leisure. Within these disciplines there are contrasting discussions involving biological, economic, environmental, historical, medical, political, psychological and sociological ways of constructing meaning. These occur in the domains of bio-medical treatment and health promotion framed within embodiment and embodiment practice. The bio-medical domain frames ‘health’ as the prevention of disease/illness/injury and views ‘leisure’ as a tool through which to reduce risk. While 21st century health promotion posits ‘health’ more holistically, ‘leisure’ still often focuses on issues related to individual’s physical ‘health’. In reality leisure and health are complex concepts that exist within a system of ebbs and flows that impact each other in different ways depending on your point of view.
RESUMO Os objetivos deste trabalho são identificar: 1) a compreensão que graduandos e pós-graduandos do Brasil e dos Estados Unidos de cursos relacionados a área da saúde possuem de lazer e saúde e 2) a expectativa de tais estudantes em relação a atuação no campo da saúde. Ao se falar em saúde há uma tendência no meio científico em reduzir a questão a aspectos relacionados a fatores exclusivamente biológicos, sendo desconsiderada a condição de vida dos sujeitos, os fatores culturais, a escolha individual. Além disso, embora seja amplamente difundida a ideia de que as práticas corporais fazem bem à saúde, há uma parcela mínima da população adepta a tais práticas. A maneira como tais práticas são dirigidas pelos profissionais da área da saúde pode ser um dos elementos influenciadores da opção dos sujeitos com relação a realização ou não das mesmas como opção de lazer. A metodologia utilizada foi a pesquisa bibliográfica e de campo, caracterizando este estudo como qualitativo. A pesquisa de campo utilizou entrevistas semiestruturadas. Como resultado, observou-se que os entrevistados falaram de um conceito de " saúde " como ausência de doença, sinônimo de atividade física e totalidade humana. Com relação ao lazer se referem a somente o tempo livre das obrigações e a diversão, desconsideram o desenvolvimento pessoal e social. Os entrevistados estão cientes de que o campo da saúde tem oportunidades de crescimento e mudança, no entanto, nenhum deles respondeu em detalhes o que esperam de seu trabalho no futuro. Palavras-chave: Estudantes de Ciências da Saúde, Determinantes sociais da saúde, Atividades de lazer, Educação Física e treinamento, Apoio ao desenvolvimento de recursos humanos. ABSTRACT The objectives of this work are to identify: 1) the understanding that undergraduate and graduate students from Brazil and the United States have of courses related to leisure and health, and 2) the expectation of such students in relation to activities in the health field. When talking about health there is a tendency in scientific circles to reduce the issue to aspects exclusively biological, and disregard the living conditions of the subjects, cultural factors, and individual choice. Moreover, although it is a widespread idea that body practices are good for health, there is a small portion of the population adept with such practices. The way such practices are addressed by health professionals can be one of the elements influencing the choice of the subjects with respect to whether or not the same is a leisure option. The methodology used for this study was bibliographical and field research, characterizing this as a qualitative study. Field research used semi-structured interviews. As a result, it was observed that the interviewees spoke of of " health " as absence of disease, synonymous with physical activity and human totality. Regarding leisure subjects refer to only free time, obligations and fun. Subjects disregard completely the personal and social development aspects of leisure. Respondents are aware that the health field has opportunities for growth and change; however, none of them responded in detail what is expected of their work in the future. Leisure and health: undergraduate and graduate students expectations from Brazil and the United States of action in the health field
The Role of the Outdoor Recreation Discipline in Public Health: Nature as Preventative Medicine
The natural environment is being increasingly recognized as an essential component of human health. This literature review explores this relationship as it occurs in the scholarly literature, with particular emphasis on the ways that outdoor recreation as an academic discipline facilitates human-natural environment interactions. Salient theories from a variety of disciplines are tied to parks, protected lands and wilderness, and global trends are discussed. Ultimately, it is suggested that outdoor recreation and its parent discipline of recreation and leisure studies can be viewed as integral pieces of the emerging wellness model, and that interaction with natural environments may foster stewardship and health.
Blue Space, Health and Wellbeing: Hydrophilia Unbounded , 2019
A range of texts have now explored the positive association between aquatic environments, or blue space, and health. This chapter purposefully focuses on a third element of that experience, indeed one that underpins it in many cases, namely leisure. Within developed countries many people engage with blue spaces in the context of leisure and leisure tourism. The coastline is the most obvious example of this with most leisure tourism across the globe taking place on or near to the coast. Indeed, the first mass tourists in the West were those who visited the seaside and the popularity of the beach have been exported globally from those early days in Northern England. The seaside resort and beaches along the coast are landscapes of leisure. As such they no not only facilitate ‘blue mind’ but also a ‘leisure mind’ or state of mind, as can be found other environments which may not be blue, green or even outdoors. In either case, both can be positively associated with wellbeing. However, this chapter also suggests that for the blue mind to be fully realised an appropriate state of mind must be adopted beforehand and potentially alongside it, one which allows a focus on the blue in the first place and sanctions activities that involve exposure to blue space - the ‘leisure mind’ offers this function. This may not be a straightforward relationship but rather one of potentially complex two-way interaction. In other words, those who endeavour to experience blue mind and benefit from aquatic environments are often approaching this through an anticipative leisurely state of mind that is both open to optimal experiences and facilitated through socially permissible leisure activities - such as playing on the beach, walking along the prom or water sports. Likewise, blue spaces, and other natural environments, are also vital to the leisure experience and may account for reports of wellness often attributed to leisure activities. So, Leisure and Tourism are in fact a facilitator and vital link between blue space and health, perhaps the glue that binds them. However, they are also merge with ‘blue mind’ to form a seemingly indistinguishable coastal experience, for very often exposure to blue space and holidays or daytrips are the same thing and as everybody knows we all need a holiday. The many potential psychological benefits accrued from being by the seaside are largely enabled by being in a positive state mind beforehand. Entering leisure states in and of themselves have been identified as psychologically beneficial (see Carruthers and Hood, 2004; Kleiber et al 2011), but when such mind-states are framed around certain environments, the benefits can be significantly enhanced. Although the leisure state of mind has been identified as being made up of a perception of freedom coupled with varying amounts of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (see Neulinger 1974), it is the many positive experiences that are propagated from such a state of mind which have been recognised as significantly contributing to wellbeing. One such experience involves an individual’s ability to concentrate and focus on either an activity or vista, freeing themselves from the many distractions that would otherwise sully their thoughts. Consequently, natural environments can be more readily embraced and interacted with, culminating in more powerful health affirming experiences.
People and Nature: Toward an Ecological Model of Health Promotion
Leisure Sciences, 2009
Striving for a healthier relationship among individuals, families, communities, nations, and the environment is imperative at a time in history when humankind can change the face of the earth in monumental ways. This dynamic health relationship, with an emphasis on the contributions of parks, recreation, and tourism to health promotion, is the subject of this article. A broader conception of health that moves beyond human physical and mental health to include familial, communal, national, international, and global ecological health is called for, and a more comprehensive ecological model of health promotion, including consideration of health from a holistic ecological perspec tive, is presented. New directions for leisure research based on an ecological orientation to health promotion conclude the article.