The marked disparity in life expectancy between men and women suggests men are a vulnerable group requiring targeted health promotion programs. As such, there is an increasing need for health promotion strategies that effectively engage men with their health and/or illness management. Programs that promote physical activity could significantly improve the health of men. Although George et al. (Sports Med 42(3):281, 30) reviewed physical activity programs involving adult males published between 1990 and 2010, developments in men’s health have prompted the emergence of new sex- and gender-specific approaches targeting men. The purpose of this review was to: (1) extend and update the review undertaken by George et al. (Sports Med 42(3):281, 30) concerning the effectiveness of physical activity programs in males, and (2) evaluate the integration of gender-specific influences in the content, design, and delivery of men’s health promotion programs. A search of MEDLINE, CINAHL, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, PsycINFO, the Cochrane Library, and the SPORTDiscus databases for articles published between January 2010 and August 2014 was conducted. In total, 35 studies, involving evaluations of 31 programs, were identified. Findings revealed that a variety of techniques and modes of delivery could effectively promote physical activity among men. Though the majority of programs were offered exclusively to men, 12 programs explicitly integrated gender-related influences in male-specific programs in ways that recognized men’s interests and preferences. Innovations in male-only programs that focus on masculine ideals and gender influences to engage men in increasing their physical activity hold potential for informing strategies to promote other areas of men’s health.

The importance of sensorimotor interactions with the environment to the development and structure of cognitive processes is now being taken seriously by an increasing number of cognitive scientists. An embodied cognition approach to the study of cognitive processing has been adopted by researchers examining such varied abilities as cognitive and motor development, mental imagery, memory, reasoning and problem solving, linguistic processing, metaphor processing, and concept formation (Clark, 1997;Gibbs, 2006;Glenberg, 1997;Lakoff & Johnson, 1999;Pecher & Zwaan, 2005;Wilson, 2002).In the research area of visual word recognition, it could be proposed that imageability effects (i.e., words with referents that can be easily sensed, such as peach, are recognized more rapidly and/or more accurately than words with referents that cannot be easily sensed, such as fraud) (e.g., Cortese, Simpson, & Woolsey, 1997;Strain, Patterson, & Seidenberg, 1995) are best understood from an embodied cognitive perspective. As a result of repeated sensory experience with certain objects or events, words that refer to these objects or events develop richer linguistic representations than do words that refer to objects or events with which humans have less sensory experience. According to an embodied cognitive perspective, an important component of the conceptual understanding of easily imageable words is the set of sensory representations that may be activated when linguistic processing occurs, resulting in faster and more accurate responses to these words in visual word recognition tasks.Barsalou and colleagues recently developed an embodied framework that they described as perceptual symbol systems theory (Barsalou, 1999(Barsalou, , 2003a(Barsalou, , 2003bBarsalou, Simmons, Barbey, & Wilson, 2003). According to this theory, many different modalities are involved in the acquisition and processing of conceptual knowledge. In addition to systems that have been well studied in cognitive psychology, such as cognitive systems (e.g., attention and language processing) and sensory systems (e.g., vision and olfaction), the theory suggests that less studied systems, such as motor, kinesthetic, and proprioceptive systems (e.g., grasping, manual manipulation, and internal feedback from muscles and joints) and emotional systems (e.g., fear and pleasure), are fundamental to concept formation and processing. Although knowledge acquired through these individual systems is at first processed in modalityspecific memory systems, it is eventually fed into hierarchical convergence areas where integration of the separate forms of information takes place (see also Damasio, 1989;Edelman & Tononi, 2000;Kandel, 2006;LeDoux, 2001). Accessing conceptual knowledge involves partial activation or simulation of the varied systems that were involved in the original encoding of the object or event. According to this perspective, sensory and motor knowledge gained via bodily experience with the environment is an important part of what is learned about concepts, and it is...

Health care professionals need to understand mental health service recipients' perspectives of a "healthy lifestyle." An understanding of barriers within this context is required, as only then will we be able to empathize and assist as health care professionals. This study also shows that realistic, innovative, and pragmatic solutions occur when mental health service recipients are empowered.

No abstract