Looking good, feeling good: the embodied pleasures of vibrant physicality

Monaghan, Lee F.

doi:10.1111/1467-9566.00255

Cited by 113 publications

(94 citation statements)

References 35 publications

(57 reference statements)

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“…Items were mainly derived from six studies carried out in a range of populations (Backett, 1992;d'Houtaud & Field, 1984;Furnham, 1994;McKague & Verhoef, 2003;Monaghan, 2001;Torsch & Ma, 2000). Twenty four items were included on the initial scale; eight were intended to measure belief in each dimension of wellness.…”

Section: Methods Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

The development and initial validation of a new measure of lay definitions of health: The wellness beliefs scale

Bishop

Yardley

2010

Psychology & Health

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The objective was to develop a psychometrically sound questionnaire measure of lay people's beliefs about the importance of different signs of wellness (the Wellness Beliefs Scale, WBS).Questionnaire items were derived from qualitative literature. 942 people (recruited from the community and patient support groups) participated in 2 cross-sectional studies using paper and web-based questionnaires. Study 1 participants completed the initial version of the WBS. Study 2 participants completed the revised version of the WBS and existing measures of health beliefs, illness perceptions, and health status. Factor analysis confirmed that the WBS measures 3 distinct wellness beliefs: belief in the importance of biomedical (absence of illness), functional (ability to carry out daily tasks), and wellbeing (vitality) indicators of wellness. The 3 resulting subscales all had good internal consistency and could be used to cluster participants into 3 groups. Wellness belief scores were related to gender, health status and subjective health; there were few associations with health beliefs. In conclusion, the WBS is a promising new measure of 3 distinct wellness beliefs, with good initial psychometric properties, which could potentially be used to better target individualised health promotion interventions. Weinman, Petrie, Moss-Morris, & Horne, 1996). This focus on illness rather than health is justifiable, but an extended focus to include the study of health is now being recognised as important. As Lawton (2003) has argued, comparatively little is known about how lay people think about health and yet 'healthy' people are increasingly the subject of health promotion interventions and other forms of medical attention. The need to attend to health beliefs and behaviours, as distinct from illness beliefs and behaviours, was emphasised by Rakowski (1984) and there is a reasonably extensive qualitative literature on lay perceptions of wellness (for a review see Hughner & Kleine, 2004). This study was inspired by and draws on that qualitative literature in order to develop a questionnaire measure of lay definitions of wellness.Despite recent developments in positive psychology, people's perceptions of wellness have not been widely incorporated into main-stream health psychology. There is no established or widely used theoretical framework for thinking about the impact of wellness beliefs on health and illness behaviours and there are no well-validated measures of lay perceptions of wellness.However, three lines of argument suggest that wellness beliefs could be an important construct for and indeed a necessary addition to health psychology.

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Section: Methods Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

The development and initial validation of a new measure of lay definitions of health: The wellness beliefs scale

Bishop

Yardley

2010

Psychology & Health

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“…Yet the challenges of developing and delivering more sustained approaches to addressing men's health needs within a neo-liberal policy framework remain a cause for concern (Williams, Previous work has identified the importance of 'vibrant physicality', the embodiment of feeling good, to men's sense of enjoyment, health and wellbeing (Monaghan 2001;Robertson 2006) and how social engagement facilitates the maintenance of health enhancing behaviour (Marcus & Forsyth, 2009). This was evident within the PLH projects with many men citing terms like "enjoyment", "fun", "feeling really good" "got my mojo back" or "feeling high as a kite" as reasons they continued involvement.…”

Section: Developing and Sustaining Trustmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘It is fun, fitness and football really’: a process evaluation of a football-based health intervention for men

Robertson

Zwolinsky

Pringle

et al. 2013

Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health

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Concerns about gender inequalities in longevity, particularly premature male mortality, have prompted a range of innovative approaches to health promotion work with men dating back to the 1980s. In developing such work, sport, and football in particular, has emerged as a gendered cultural field that has utility for engaging men in health initiatives. Evaluations of such work, whilst few in number, have shown that health initiatives using football settings, football based interventions, or even football club branding, can have positive impact on various health measures in the short and the longer term. However, little work to date has looked at the underlying mechanisms that generate success in such projects. This paper presents secondary analysis of data collected during the evaluation of the Premier League Health (PLH) programme specifically focusing on these underlying mechanisms and how/where gender (masculinities) appears in these processes. We draw on interview data with sixteen staff who had been involved in the delivery of the PLH initiative and fifty-eight men who took part. Thematic analysis highlighted two overarching (and underpinning) themes: 'Trust', what processes it was key to and how it was developed and sustained; 'Change', including what it was facilitated by and what impact it had. The paper adds to our understanding of how active listening, flexibility and sustained engagement are key to sports based projects generating success. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the physicality and sociability of involvement, rather than any direct focus on 'health' was important in acting as a spring-board for facilitating reflection and aiding lifestyle changes for the men in line with PLH programme desired outcomes.

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“…As Monaghan (2001) has pointed out, very little is known about people's experience of health, particularly 'vibrant health' and physicality. This study makes a modest contribution to this, with a focus upon young, healthy male adults' experiences of embodiment.…”

Section: Masculinity Identity and Embodimentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Body Projects and the Regulation of Normative Masculinity

Gill¹,

Henwood²,

2005

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Articles available via LSE Research Articles AbstractDrawing on interviews with 140 young British males, this paper explores the ways in which men talk about their own bodies and bodily practices, and those of other men. The specific focus of interest is a variety of body modification practices, including working out (at a gym) tattooing, piercing and cosmetic surgery. We want to argue, however, that the significance of this analysis extends beyond the topic of body modification to a broader set of issues concerned with the nature of men's embodied identities. In discussing the appearance of their bodies, the men we interviewed talked less about muscle and skin than about their own selves located within particular social, cultural and moral universes. The surfaces of their bodies were, as Mike Featherstone (1991) has argued, charged primarily with 'identity functions', allowing men to establish a place for themselves in contemporary society.Using a social psychological approach which can be characterised as a discursive analysis (Henwood, Gill & McLean, 1999;Lupton, 1998), this paper makes connections between men's private feelings and bodily practices, and broader social and cultural trends and relations. It shows that in talking about seemingly trivial questions such as whether to have one's nose pierced or whether to join a gym, men are actively engaged in constructing and policing appropriate masculine behaviours and identities; above all, in regulating normative masculinity. We identify five key discourses or 'interpretive repertoires' (Wetherell & Potter, 1992) which together construct the meanings for these men of attempts to modify the appearance of the body. The five discourses or repertoires were focused on the themes of individualism and 'being different'; libertarianism and the autonomous body; unselfconsciousness and the rejection of vanity; a notion of the 'well-balanced' and unobsessional self; and self-respect and the morally accountable body. Our analysis lends support to the claim that the body has become a new (identity) project in high/late/postmodernity (e.g. Shilling, 1993;Featherstone, 1991), but shows how fraught with difficulties this project is for young men who must simultaneously work on and discipline their bodies while disavowing any (inappropriate) interest in their own appearance. The analysis highlights the pervasive individualism of young men's discourses, and the absence of alternative ways of making sense of embodied experiences.2

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Looking good, feeling good: the embodied pleasures of vibrant physicality

Cited by 113 publications

References 35 publications

The development and initial validation of a new measure of lay definitions of health: The wellness beliefs scale

The development and initial validation of a new measure of lay definitions of health: The wellness beliefs scale

‘It is fun, fitness and football really’: a process evaluation of a football-based health intervention for men

Body Projects and the Regulation of Normative Masculinity

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