Nutrition for distance events

The goal of training is to prepare the distance athlete to perform at his or her best during major competitions. Whatever the event, nutrition plays a major role in the achievement of various factors that will see a runner or walker take the starting line in the best possible form. Everyday eating patterns must supply fuel and nutrients needed to optimize their performance during training sessions and to recover quickly afterwards. Carbohydrate and fluid intake before, during, and after a workout may help to reduce fatigue and enhance performance. Recovery eating should also consider issues for adaptation and the immune system that may involve intakes of protein and some micronutrients. Race preparation strategies should include preparation of adequate fuel stores, including carbohydrate loading for prolonged events such as the marathon or 50-km walk. Fluid and carbohydrate intake during races lasting an hour or more should also be considered. Sports foods and supplements of value to distance athletes include sports drinks and liquid meal supplements to allow nutrition goals to be achieved when normal foods are not practical. While caffeine is an ergogenic aid of possible value to distance athletes, most other supplements are of minimal benefit.     

Energy and carbohydrate for training and recovery

Soccer players should achieve an energy intake that provides sufficient carbohydrate to fuel the training and competition programme, supplies all nutrient requirements, and allows manipulation of energy or nutrient balance to achieve changes in lean body mass, body fat or growth. Although the traditional culture of soccer has focused on carbohydrate intake for immediate match preparation, top players should adapt their carbohydrate intake on a daily basis to ensure adequate fuel for training and recovery between matches. For players with a mobile playing style, there is sound evidence that dietary programmes that restore and even super-compensate muscle glycogen levels can enhance activity patterns during matches. This will presumably also benefit intensive training, such as twice daily practices. As well as achieving a total intake of carbohydrate commensurate with fuel needs, the everyday diet should promote strategic intake of carbohydrate and protein before and after key training sessions to optimize the adaptations and enhance recovery. The achievement of the ideal physique for soccer is a long-term goal that should be undertaken over successive years, and particularly during the off-season and pre-season. An increase in lean body mass or a decrease in body fat is the product of a targeted training and eating programme. Consultation with a sports nutrition expert can assist soccer players to manipulate energy and nutrient intake to meet such goals. Players should be warned against the accidental or deliberate mismatch of energy intake and energy expenditure, such that energy availability (intake minus the cost of exercise) falls below 125 kJ (30 kcal) per kilogram of fat-free mass per day. Such low energy availability causes disturbances to hormonal, metabolic, and immune function.     

An action research strategy for selecting and conducting program evaluations

Program evaluation is part of the expanding role of the professional school psychologist. Existing strategies for program evaluation, however, are insufficient to meet the needs of school psychologists interested in evaluating school-related programs. The diversity of educational programs necessitates a more comprehensive, integrated, and flexible model. In the present paper, dimensions of program evaluation—target, purpose, and stage—relevant to school psychologists are described and defined, and then combined into a conceptual framework indicating 48 different types of program evaluation. The present model incorporates relevant aspects of existing program evaluation strategies and action research, affording practitioners a strategy for selecting and conducting program evaluations. Suggested steps for implementing the action research strategy, as well as a hypothetical example of its use, also are offered.     

Climate Change: Implications for Parents and Parenting

This tutorial draws together research on the impacts of climate change on children and youth, and suggests how parents, and parenting researchers, educators, and professionals, can engage with climate change. We start with an overview of the science of climate change and highlight the urgency of action to restore a safe climate for future generations. Then we discuss three major types of impact of climate change on children and youth: first, their greater vulnerability to its impacts on health and well-being due to physiological immaturity and dependency, a vulnerability that is greatly exacerbated for children in disadvantaged circumstances; second, evidence of widespread worry about climate change among children and youth, and their need for support and empowerment to respond adaptively to these anxieties; and third, the need to prepare the next generation for demands for massive changes in lifestyles as the world transitions to a low-carbon economy. We follow with a review of evidence about how parents can support their children through actively engaging with the issue themselves and through communication and other strategies that help build children’s hope, efficacy, resilience, and engagement. We then discuss the multiple important roles that parenting researchers and professionals can play in addressing climate change, concluding that those of us with responsibility for future generations need to recognize climate change as an urgent challenge.     

Re-imagining the local in national cultural policy formulation – the case of the Anglophone Caribbean

ABSTRACT

The formulation of cultural policies in the Anglophone Caribbean constantly straddles the demands of global, regional and national imperatives as a function of its position as a region of post-colonial, small-island states. This paper will argue that the role these factors play in the art of policy making problematises conventions in the current global/local (glocal) debate circulating in the arena of Cultural Policy Studies. The paper shows that cultural policy making in the Caribbean constitutes a mélange of approaches that are in a constant state of contestation during the policy-making process. It employs content analysis of cultural policy texts from selected Caribbean states, as well as an analysis of stakeholder views from the national cultural policy consultations in Trinidad and Tobago to derive its findings. A Five Factor framework was developed to illustrate the range of responses that guide and shape local actors and activities in the national cultural policy domain. The research concludes that the relationship between the national and local (nocal) actors has to be re-imagined if cultural policy is to deliver on its promise of social transformation in the Caribbean.     

Measuring academic Self-Concept in children: A comparison of two scales

While numerous studies attest to a relationship between academic self-concept and achievement, a variety of measures of self-concept have been used, and the equivalence of these instruments has received limited attention. In this investigation, the Self-Concept of Ability Scale (SCAS) and the newer and less examined Self-Perception of Attainment Scale (SPAS) were compared for their ability to predict achievement in reading as measured by the California Achievement Test (CAT). We predicted that: (a) both scales would be significant predictors of reading achievement, (b) when used as single predictors, the SCAS would have significantly greater weight than the SPAS, and (c) a linear combination of these scales would have greater weight than either scale alone. Using 187 eighth-grade students, we confirmed that both scales were significant predictors of achievement in reading and that a linear combination of the two accounted for more variance than either scale alone. We did not find, however, that the SCAS was a significantly better predictor than the SPAS.     

Individualised dietary strategies for Olympic combat sports: Acute weight loss,recovery and competition nutrition

Olympic combat sports separate athletes into weight divisions, in an attempt to reduce size, strength, range and/or leverage disparities between competitors. Official weigh-ins are conducted anywhere from 3 and up to 24?h prior to competition ensuring athletes meet weight requirements (i.e. have ‘made weight’). Fighters commonly aim to compete in weight divisions lower than their day-to-day weight, achieved via chronic and acute manipulations of body mass (BM). Although these manipulations may impair health and absolute performance, their strategic use can improve competitive success. Key considerations are the acute manipulations around weigh-in, which differ in importance, magnitude and methods depending on the requirements of the individual combat sport and the weigh-in regulations. In particular, the time available for recovery following weigh-in/before competition will determine what degree of acute BM loss can be implemented and reversed. Increased exercise and restricted food and fluid intake are undertaken to decrease body water and gut contents reducing BM. When taken to the extreme, severe weight-making practices can be hazardous, and efforts have been made to reduce their prevalence. Indeed some have called for the abolition of these practices altogether. In lieu of adequate strategies to achieve this, and the pragmatic recognition of the likely continuation of these practices as long as regulations allow, this review summarises guidelines for athletes and coaches for manipulating BM and optimising post weigh-in recovery, to achieve better health and performance outcomes across the different Olympic combat sports.     

A paradigm for evaluating assessment interviewing techniques

For the school psychologist, interviewing is a commonly used but little understood assessment technique, often appreciated for its apparent simplicity and flexibility but criticized for its frequent lack of psychometric rigor. With few standardized and/or validated assessment interview schedules and little systematic training in diagnostic interviewing, the school psychologist is left to develop his or her own personalized assessment interview style. Three dimensions (namely, predetermination of questions, interviewer response options, and breadth of content explored) which appear to determine assessment interview structure and format are described and operationally defined and then combined into a conceptual model indicating 27 different assessment interview formats. This paradigm affords practitioners a model for classifying their own assessment interview techniques. Further research into the psychometric qualities of different types of assessment interviews so classified is suggested.