Tagged / photography competition

Photo of the week: ‘Active ageing in place’

BU research, Research news

Telling a story of research through photography

The ‘photo of the week’ is a weekly series featuring photographs taken by BU academics and students for our Research Photography Competition which took place earlier this year.

These provide a snapshot into some of the incredible research taking place across the BU community. 

This week’s photo of the week was taken by Dr Michelle Heward and is titled;

‘Active ageing in place’

The onset of physical and mental impairments in later life may mean that mobility declines and individuals need to adjust or change their levels of activity accordingly. Older people therefore require choice of physical activities that are flexible to ensure all abilities are catered for. The GO Active Gold Programme in Oxfordshire encourages people in rural areas age 60 and over, to live more active lifestyles, by setting up local physical activities for all abilities. With funding received from Sport England, they employed rural Activators, to work in partnership with local communities to deliver a varied, inclusive and social physical activity programme. To date, the programme has engaged over 3000 participants from 81 different villages.

Under the ‘Activity and Inclusion’ research theme the Ageing and Dementia Research Centre are currently evaluating how far the project has improved the physical and mental well-being of older adults; encouraged stronger community spirit by reducing loneliness and social isolation through participation in activities; developed a sustainable physical activity programme. Research team: Dr Michelle Heward (Post-Doctoral Research Fellow), Amanda Adams (PhD Student) Prof Jane Murphy (Professor of Nutrition)

If you have any questions about the Photo of the Week series or the Research Photography Competition please email research@bournemouth.ac.uk

Photo of the week: ‘Rich and poor living side by side in 21st century India’

BU research, Research news

Telling a story of research through photography

The ‘photo of the week’ is a weekly series featuring photographs taken by BU academics and students for our Research Photography Competition which took place earlier this year.

These provide a snapshot into some of the incredible research taking place across the BU community. 

This week’s photo of the week was taken by Professor of Maternal and Perinatal Health Research; Edwin van Teijlingen and is titled:

‘Rich and poor living side by side in 21st century India’

‘This photo of a shack made of corrugated iron surrounded by newly build white painted concrete apartment buildings represents the old and the new India. It also reflects the enormous gap between the poor and those growing urban middle-class. The shack is located on a bit of wasteland, suggesting a something temporary, perhaps this piece of land is a future building site. At the same time this humble abode has washing hanging outside signifying certain standards of hygiene as well as dignity in poverty.’

‘This photo was taken in Pune (India) which I visited as part of BU’s Global Festival of Learning in February 2018. This mixture of ‘old and new’ as well as ‘rich and poor’ can be found all over cities in India and Nepal. The picture represents our research in the sense that we continuously try to improve the lives of the poorest in South-Asian society.’

If you have any questions about the Photo of the Week series or the Research Photography Competition please email research@bournemouth.ac.uk

Photo of the week: ‘The Place: A health and fitness shop’

BU research, Research communication, Research news

Telling a story of research through photography

The ‘photo of the week’ is a weekly series featuring photographs taken by BU academics and students for our Research Photography Competition which took place earlier this year.

These provide a snapshot into some of the incredible research taking place across the BU community. 

This week’s photo of the week was taken by PhD Student Orlanda Harvey and is titled;

‘The Place: A health and fitness shop’

‘The placement of this model of the Incredible Hulk outside a health and gym store embodies one of the initial findings from my research. Part of my exploration into the experiences of men who use Anabolic Androgenic Steroids (AAS) evidences that one driver for building muscle is the link between muscularity and masculinity. Interviewees referenced the influence of social media images and ‘ripped’ celebrities as a reason for the current increase in use of AAS for recreational purposes and others talked about the muscular physique as being ‘what women want’.

‘Using hyper-muscular images, such as the Incredible Hulk to encourage people to purchase supplements, which have been found to illegally include AAS (Evans-Brown et al. 2012). This is tapping into the trend for men to have increasingly muscular physiques. This trend is seeping into western cultural norms and has influenced the design of toys, e.g. the chest sizes of G.I. Joe and Barbie’s Ken (Brownell and Napolitano 1995, Pope Jr. et al. 2016) have significantly increased, unrepresentative of achievable norm. Men, like women, are bombarded with unrealistic images of body shape, which could encourage some to take potentially risky routes such as using AAS to try to achieve the ‘ideal’.

If you have any questions about the Photo of the Week series or the Research Photography Competition please email research@bournemouth.ac.uk