european college of sport science

Saturday, June 27th, 2009
and the increases in tendon stiffness (r = 0.68, P < 0.01) and Young’s modulus (r = 0.75, P < 0.01). Unexpectedly, the increase in muscle
PCSA was inversely related to the mean increase in tendon CSA (r = -0.64, P < 0.05).
These data show that patellar tendon hypertrophy is prominent near but not limited to osteo-tendinous junctions. The positive relationships
between increases in tendon stiffness and modulus and muscle PCSA, but not with maximal force, suggest that changes in tendon
mechanical and material properties to overloading are closely related to the loading history, rather than to the increase in maximal stress
that can be exerted upon the tendon. The inverse correlations between changes in tendon mean CSA and in muscle PCSA, or lack
thereof, implies that the mechanisms underlying acute tendon hypertrophy are different than those responsible of the increase in tendon
dimensions with development (1).
1. Elliott DH, and Crawford GN. The thickness and collagen content of tendon relative to the cross-sectional area of muscle during growth.
Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 162: 198-202, 1965.
2. Lieber RL, and Friden J. Functional and clinical significance of skeletal muscle architecture. Muscle Nerve 23: 1647-1666, 2000.
10:15 - 11:45
Invited symposia
IS-SS10 Physical Education, Obesity and Health - Critical Perspectives
GOVERNING BODIES: BIO-PEDAGOGIES AND THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC
WRIGHT, J.
UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG
The idea of an ‘obesity epidemic’ has taken hold internationally with&#8232;widespread media attention, government health initiatives
and&#8232;interventions at a range of levels (from health to education) and&#8232;changes in school policies and practices. In this
presentation I will&#8232;make the argument that the ‘obesity epidemic’ and associated practices&#8232;depend on a range of pedagogies
that affect contemporary life at both&#8232;the level of the individual and the population. The concept of ‘bio-
&#8232;pedagogies’ will be introduced as a means to conceptualise how these&#8232;pedagogies function. The notion of biopedagogies
is drawn from&#8232;Foucault’s (1987) concept of ‘biopower’, the governance and&#8232;regulation of individuals and
populations through practices associated&#8232;with the body. Bio-pedagogies not only place individuals under&#8232;constant
surveillance, but also press them towards increasingly&#8232;monitoring themselves, often through increasing their knowledge
around&#8232;‘obesity’ related risks/issues, ‘instructing’ them on how to eat&#8232;healthily, and stay active and contributing to affective
investments&#8232;in the ways children and young people come to think about themselves&#8232;and their bodies. The presentation
will report on the first steps in&#8232;the theorising of the results of a joint UK, Australian and New&#8232;Zealand project, which
investigated the impact of the new ’health&#8232;imperatives’, or as we have come to call them ’biopedagogies’,&#8232;associated
with the rhetoric of the ’obesity epidemic’ on schools and&#8232;school students. The shared purpose of the project is to explore
how&#8232;schools have taken up and recontextualised the new health imperatives&#8232;within their policies and practices, and how
this has impacted upon&#8232;students’ lives.
SAVING YOUNG PEOPLE FROM OBESITY - FOR THE GOOD (?) OF THE SOCIETY
QUENNERSTEDT, M.
ÖREBRO UNIVERSITY
Over the past two decades there has been a worldwide reappearance of interest in health education and the health of young people
both from educators and from politicians. In the light of the western world’s growing population of aging people and the difficulty with
obesity and other health problems, focus has been given to education as a tool for creating healthy citizens in terms of ready-made
lifestyles and healthy behaviours.
Although the evidence about young people’s health and participation in physical activities is inconclusive, young people, as “the coming
future”, have become a principal target of government initiatives aimed at countering the perceived trend of increasing ill-health.
In the presentation media texts, video games (exergaming), school curricula and research on health education is used to illustrate a
possible shift towards a more individualistic, instrumental, biomedical, but also a more morally normative health approach directed
towards behavioural change, disease prevention, individual lifestyle choices and in that sense teaching young people to be healthy. The
consequences of this is now revealing itself in schools regarding running ‘fat laps’ for overweight children (Australia), special PE for overweight
students (Sweden), governmental health surveillance through BMI (USA, UK) and daily physical activity in schools using unfounded
walks without content where energy in/out constitute the central rationale for the implementation of the activity.
However, an alternative to conceiving good health as something that can be defined by politicians, researchers, public health policies,
sport federations and the media, set up as an aim for young people to achieve, is instead to conceive health in the context where they
live, learn and flourish in terms of learning health. Learning health, then, is something you continuously do, as a practice and not as an
outcome. To overcome individualism and instrumentalism in health education we need to discuss learning as situated in young peoples
lives as well as in a wider social, cultural, political context. In this way health is also regarded as a societal responsibility in terms of that
the wider context provides opportunities to be healthy and to learn healthy living. This way of conceiving health and health education is
clearly supported by school curricula in several countries (e.g. New Zealand and Sweden). However, the national curricula also opens up
for health education reduced to consumerism practices where we turn over the health messages to young people to private enterprise,
media, sports organizations, fitness people and TV programs like ‘down size me’.
In research, if we are to understand the construction of school health knowledge, we have to go beyond the instrumentalism and individualism
of health education and health policy and as researchers take an interest in how young people learn health and in what ways
they have the possibility to be healthy and to develop health.
OSLO/NORWAY, JUNE 24-27, 2009 539