Validity of wearable activity monitors for tracking steps and estimating energy expenditure during a graded maximal treadmill test

The purpose of this study was to assess the accuracy of energy expenditure (EE) estimation and step tracking abilities of six activity monitors (AMs) in relation to indirect calorimetry and hand counted steps and assess the accuracy of the AMs between high and low fit individuals in order to assess the impact of exercise intensity. Fifty participants wore the Basis watch, Fitbit Flex, Polar FT7, Jawbone, Omron pedometer, and Actigraph during a maximal graded treadmill test. Correlations, intra-class correlations, and t-tests determined accuracy and agreement between AMs and criterions. The results indicate that the Omron, Fitbit, and Actigraph were accurate for measuring steps while the Basis and Jawbone significantly underestimated steps. All AMs were significantly correlated with indirect calorimetry, however, no devices showed agreement (p < .05). When comparing low and high fit groups, correlations between AMs and indirect calorimetry improved for the low fit group, suggesting AMs may be better at measuring EE at lower intensity exercise.     

An empirical analysis of political activity in Hollywood

Film plays an important role in the American political system, and forms an important branch of the mass media. I analyze the political contributions of a sample of 996 top film actors, directors, producers, and writers, correlating them with demographic, family, and career success variables. I find that contributions flow overwhelmingly to left-of-center parties and organizations. I theorize about the causes of this bias, and argue empirically that, while demographic variables are not completely irrelevant, Hollywood liberalism is primarily a function of high, publicly visible incomes, and family connections. Neither religion nor birthplace effects seem to affect political activity in the film business.

Shaping up? Three acts of education studies as textual critique

This paper presents a study of dominant educational discourses through textual critique and argues that such an approach enables education studies to preserve an important distinction from teacher training. The texts deconstructed here are specific to English education, but the discourses at work have international relevance as the rhetorics of accountability, performance and measurement (which we call cells of discourse) have global reach. Ward described a national picture in England whereby the great majority, if not all, of education studies undergraduate courses appear to be taught alongside, or within (through shared modules) teacher training programmes. But from a sociological position, these are two increasingly conflicting arenas—the study of education and the training of teachers. In response, Ward called for the subject to radicalize teacher education. The implications of this are significant if education studies is to retain a status as agent of critique. In this paper we return to the theme of education studies as a discrete practice from teacher training and suggest that any acceptance of a proximal relation to teacher education is counter‐productive. In so doing we offer three contemporary examples of the subject at deconstructive work, scrutinizing the published standards for teacher training in England, employer discourse and the Tomlinson report (commissioned by the English government to offer proposals for the reworking of vocational education) and the new curriculum for adult literacy in England. Particular attention is given to analysing the ways in which such texts speak the currently powerful discourse of standards.     

Delivering sustainable practice? A case study of the Scottish Active Schools programme

Since 1999, concerns about Scotland's future health and economic performance have profoundly impacted on the new Scottish Executive. Research highlighting an obesity crisis facing young Scots has, together with the work of Scotland's Physical Activity Task Force and Physical Education Review Group, encouraged the education of all young Scots to be more physically active. One vehicle for this is the Active Schools programme that seeks to engage all school-aged children in an active lifestyle to improve current and future health. To do this, a network of 293 primary-school co-ordinators and 343 secondary-school co-ordinators seek to integrate sport and physical activities into young people's lives before, during and after school. However, using case study material from a Scottish local authority, policy as discourse theory and Foucault's writings on governmentality, I argue that official rhetoric championing increased activity sessions ignores how the programme's generalised inclusive discourse discouraged the targeting of inactive groups, and how the initial decision to fund people not young people's preferred activities encouraged an emphasis on delivery not co-ordination. Much stems from the Scottish Executive's use of sport for public relations purposes and (relatedly) sportscotland's limited evaluations, which discouraged the injection of expertise and attention to detail necessary to reach the inactive.