Effectiveness of interventions targeting physical activity, nutrition and healthy weight for university and college students: a systematic review and meta-analysis

To examine the effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving physical activity, diet, and/or weight-related behaviors amongst university/college students. Five online databases were searched (January 1970 to April 2014). Experimental study designs were eligible for inclusion. Data extraction was performed by one reviewer using a standardized form developed by the researchers and checked by a second reviewer. Data were described in a narrative synthesis and meta-analyses were conducted when appropriate. Study quality was also established. Forty-one studies were included; of these, 34 reported significant improvements in one of the key outcomes. Of the studies examining physical activity 18/29 yielded significant results, with meta-analysis demonstrating significant increases in moderate physical activity in intervention groups compared to control. Of the studies examining nutrition, 12/24 reported significantly improved outcomes; only 4/12 assessing weight loss outcomes found significant weight reduction. This appears to be the first systematic review of physical activity, diet and weight loss interventions targeting university and college students. Tertiary institutions are appropriate settings for implementing and evaluating lifestyle interventions, however more research is needed to improve such strategies.

Space and loss: spirituality and symbolic connectedness in contemporary culture

This paper examines the significance of space in the experience, stories and memories of loss and grief. While for many religions the earth is an important element in rituals around birth, death and burial, in increasingly secular and multi-cultural societies, church and public cemeteries are no longer the dominant sacred sites, nor is religion the only way of defining ‘spirituality’. The paper describes shifts in religious and secular practices in dealing with loss and grief, presents case studies of traditional and contemporary frameworks in which ritual, storytelling and space are important elements of meaning making processes, and invites further examination of the ways in which artmaking restores a sense of control and meaning after the experience of loss.

Body image and body change strategies among Tongan adolescents in Tonga and New Zealand

Aim : The aim of this study was to evaluate the body image and body change strategies of adolescents from Tonga, and Tongans who are resident New Zealand.

Method : In total, 598 Tongans from Tonga and 388 Tongans from New Zealand completed measures of body image, body change strategies and messages about their body.

Results : Tongans in Tonga were more likely to receive positive messages about a larger body from adults at school, church and the media, and losing weight from the media. They were also more likely to adopt strategies to lose weight, increase weight and increase muscles.

Conclusion : The large body ideal appears to be still valued in Tonga, whereas Tongans also want to lose weight because of media messages to achieve a healthy body weight.

How do drug and alcohol use relate to parental bonding and risk perception in university students?

Alcohol and drug use are major health concerns on university and college campuses. It has previously been found that parental rearing patterns are related to the frequency of substance use. Further, perceptions that drug use is dangerous have been found to be related to less substance use. However, little research has directly examined the impact of parental rearing patterns on substance use by university students, and no research has examined the effects of both risk perception and parenting on substance use. Therefore, this research surveyed the frequency and extent of alcohol, cigarette and illicit drug use by students (N = 336) at a Canadian university residence, classes and health services and examined the relationship between the results with parental bonding and risk perception. It was found that “affectionless control” parenting patterns in the mother, but not the father, were related to greater drinking and drinking problems and to the use of illicit substances. Lower perceptions of risk were related to greater use of alcohol, cigarettes, cannabis and other illicit substances. Unexpectedly, there was little relationship between parental rearing and risk perceptions, suggesting that there are other avenues whereby parenting leads to greater alcohol use. Implications are discussed.

The rise of the Anglican orthodox church in Solomon Islands

 This research examines an Anglican schism in Melanesia which led to the rise of a new church and argues that the new church was a response to the fundamental importance of territory. The result is a new social formation called the segmentary church society.

Deus caritas est : more than papal lyricism

Deus caritas est: et qui manet in caritate, in Deo manet, et Deus in eo.

God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him (1John 4:16b).

Many believe in or claim that they believe and hold fast to Catholic doctrine on such questions as social authority... on the relations between Church and State, religion and country ... on the rights of the Holy See and the prerogatives of the Roman Pontiff and the Episcopate, on the social rights of Jesus Christ, Who is the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord not only of individuals but of nations. In spite of these protestations, they speak, write, and, what is more, act as if it were not necessary any longer to follow, or that they did not remain still in full force, the teachings and solemn pronouncements which may be found in so many documents of the Holy See ... (Pope Pius XI, 1922). It is a mistake to state that political, economic, and social liberation coincide with salvation in Jesus Christ; that the regnum Dei is identified with the regnum hominis (Pope John Paul I, 1978).

Crossing Bowen Street : mapping interventions in the classed subject

Synopsis: Crossing Bowen Street Crossing Bowen Street is an extended novel set in Melbourne, Australia. The protagonist, Meg Flanagan, is accepted to teachers' college. Meg is 24 years old and has worked, and lived out of home, since 17. Having completed her year 12 studies part time while working, she has applied to the Melbourne State College for a Bachelor of Education. Melbourne State College is subsequently 'amalgamated'A into Philip University, the original 19th century sandstone institution which borders MSC. Meg has worked as a medical secretary prior to commencing her studies. An only child, she is the first member of her family to go to university, indeed to finish high school. Tertiary study is exciting for Meg and the novel explores the psychic journey as well as the intellectual one, as Meg experiences challenges to the possibilities for her life and the trajectory along which she once assumed it would flow. The narrative is told through episodic and epistolary forms, with particular periods in Meg's cultural and academic life forming the focus, picking up the integral elements of her journey and examining the psychic context and action. Characters in the undergraduate chapters of the novel are somewhat transient, although very important to Meg's rapidly developing, changing sense of herself. The constant 'trying out' of ways of being and even lifestyles sees Meg losing old 'friendships' and making new, even temporary, ones all the time. This allows the opportunity for Meg to explore her feelings about connecting to others and the nature of her relationships. The Meg reflected back to her by others is of constant interest to her, particularly as she is frequently reminded that others see a very different Meg than she does. The novel commences at the outset of Meg's tertiary career, as she initially articulates the extent of her aspiration, of her sense of the possibility of her own life. Each vignette deals, chronologically, with an aspect of Meg's expanding sense of possibility, socially, emotionally, intellectually. Certain vignettes explore her relations with friends and acquaintances in the course, which in turn provide A In 1988, Federal Labor Minister for Education John Dawkins, devised a plan to end the streaming of Australian tertiary institutions and created what is called the Unified National System. This meant that colleges of advanced education and institutes of technology were either created universities in their own right, or more commonly, merged with an appropriate existing university. This process allows a fascinating insight into the class dimensions of hierarchies and stratifications. The need of universities and their members for status has been profoundly underscored. the background and context for her sexual relationships. That aspect of her developing subjectivity provides a marked contrast, which Meg uses as leverage, when set against her sense of herself as a scholar and her growing notion of entitlement, which allows her to 'choose', where previously she believed she had no choice; the choice is a scholarly career. Within all this, Meg discovers and is deeply empowered by certain political left, and feminist, discourses within the university community. She is equally dismayed and alienated by other feminist practices; her growing engagement with her own agency sees her quickly abandoning feminist subject positions previously dear to her, which served a particular purpose and are now superseded. This notion of feeling betrayed by the promise of a value system (or rather, its practitioners) will recur throughout the action of the novel, as Meg moves into an academic role, first as doctoral student and then as academic, seeking to live her values as practice and to remain true to what her trajectory has taught her. This is crystallised in the novel as the role played by the place she came from, and how that informs, and complicates, who she becomes. The novel seeks to explore the fundamental contradictions in doing so, through Meg's increasing awareness that the academy is not the harmonious, class aware institution she has idealised, but a world driven by status and hierarchies. This realisation must be reconciled in the light of Meg's anxieties about her working-class background. Meg's doctoral training at an elite university underscores her developing sense of what constitutes excellence and the role played by highly influential conservative institutions in maintaining social arrangements. As her academic career unfolds, the holding of a Cambridge PhD allows Meg opportunities to make change as certain privileges are afforded her by virtue of her Cambridge status. Yet it is this very notion that she seeks to challenge. Her growing passion for the State University of Victoria, an institution developed for the education of working-class people, informs her activism within the academy. Why are excellence and equity polarised? Why does the institution matter more than the scholarship? Why is so much practice within universities contrary to the values scholars often claim? These questions are explored through the dynamics of academic working life as student and later as a teacher at a university with an explicit equity agenda. The Start of the End (2003): The action commences on a late Friday after at SUV, when the Department of Communication & Cultural Studies has just been advised of Meg's promotion to Associate Professor. This vignette sees the initial soiree and celebrations and allows Meg to reflect on her experience. As her colleagues and friends are congratulating her, a particular student comes looking for Meg. It is clear that Angela Watson needs course advice particularly from Meg. Their discussion seems a straightforward one on the face of it, but it underscores many things; that Meg has come the full circle in her academic life, and what it is that her journey has really been about. The route to professorial appointment is considered, as is the source of Meg's greatest professional joy and fulfillment; is it scholarship, followed by leadership, in her discipline? It is knowing she has continued to speak and act to change the life chances of all students, wherever possible? Or is it the subtle distilling of both of these, along with the knowledge which emerges from the nexus of teaching and research. That scholarship, new knowledge, surely must be taking us somewhere specific in relation to others? The more we know, the more we can do...to what end? From this reflection, we see the action of the novel unfold. We return to this scene at the end of the novel, as Meg considers the trajectory of her life and its themes in her work. The novel ends as she is faced with the next challenge. Arrival (1989): Acceptance sees Meg as she is attempting to transform her life and create a new one. She has just been advised of her admission to an undergraduate Bachelor of Education program, at the major Melbourne teachers' college. Meg shares her rented home with her high school best friend, Anna, and her fiance, Jason, who appears to be superfluous in her life. Meg is aware he is a partner for who she used to be. We see Meg in her job as a medical secretary and this allows the mapping of Meg's sense of her own world, as she travels between home and work. This first stage of seeking her aspiration- to be an English teacher-evolves. As Meg considers the meaning of what she is about to do and how she knows it is right. This involves a consideration of what work means in our lives and how this is different for jobs according to how they are classed. Her relationship with the life she has known, the person she has been, is changing and this change is represented through her relationship with Jason. Meg's first day at teachers' college demonstrates that she is in a constant, often painful, dialogue with herself. The difficulties she encounters in making sense of the relation between her two 'lives' are thrown into sharp relief. The preparation for college sees Meg interrogating herself about how she can be different. Her initial experiences at the College resonate with her highest expectations of the life that awaits her, of the multiple possibilities currently being authored for her. Her first attendance at classes offers the opportunity to try out some of those possibilities, to test them against those she meets and to map the ways she could discover to 'be'. There is much tension and fear, but also endless excitement and these conflicting emotional states parallel and marble each other. It is on this day that she meets Jennifer Wren, her first real friend at university, who offers so many challenges to Meg. Their friendship involves a constant exhausting shift of subject positions, which Meg is able to look back on with affection in years to come. Going Bowling (1989): within a few weeks of commencing at university, Meg is socializing with some of her new friends, having neatly segmented her home and college lives. Meg has already realised that her friendships fall into separate groups; her friendship with Jennifer and the people Jennifer knows does not find its way into this group. They meet in the city to go bowling and have a meal. While Meg really enjoys these new people, already tensions are developing in relations between the group. Their unofficial leader, Rosemary Marshall, has a tendency to seek control and already resistance is showing. Rosemary particularly does not like Jennifer. Meg is enjoying her flirtation with Pete Danville, whom she has assumed to be gay. His very flattering attention has already developed Meg's confidence and stoked her ego, which has eroded in her stagnating relationship with Jason. Rosie has developed a crush on Pete and seems to take the flirtation with Meg personally. Dynamics in the group become slightly uncomfortable but Meg has grown quickly fond of her new friends, especially flamboyant Marina, another whom Rosemary seems to dislike. The discussions which occur during their evening deepen both the relationships and the tensions between them and draw lines which will determine the outcome of their various friendships. The Ball (1990): In the third year of her degree, much has happened to Meg. She is married to Jason, although she omits him from much of her psychic (and practical) life. Meg and her friends attend the Faculty's annual formal dinner dance. Meg has so far managed to balance the competitiveness which occurs between all of them, both academically and personally. The negotiation of her respective friendships with Jennifer and Marina requires a great deal of diplomacy; the subtext in this is very disturbing to Meg. What exactly is the conflict about? She can't be sure why they don't like each other; it could be Marina's smoking, or Jennifer's confidence to spare, but these things also annoy her, yet she does not fight with either girl as they do with each other. Rose has always insisted that the problem is Jennifer's private school background, but Marina went to a catholic girls' school, so what could the difference be? The ball is initially a happy occasion; the girls dress up and they dance and drink champagne together with the boys. But dynamics operating beneath the surface force their way up. Rosie is ready to force Pete to confront her continuing crush on him; Pete confronts Meg about their ongoing flirtation. Meg gives in and admits to herself for the first time that she does want to be with Pete. He is grown up and exciting and strong. He offers her something she has never had with Jason. Married less than a year, she pushes her husband out of her thoughts. The events of the ball force Meg to confront the differences between all her friends and the discomfort this affords everyone. Rosie's continued need for control over the group is acknowledged. Future Present (1991): Meg lives in Carlton with Pete. This is the busiest year thus far in her academic career and the financial, academic and emotional pressure is showing. This vignette gives us the range of Meg's academic activities and the way her life has fallen since the events at the ball eight months earlier. We see Meg grappling with her own evaluation of the changes in her 'way of being'; trying on different ways of living that she has idealised and finding them just as wanting as the last. Meg faces some key existential questions in this vignette and seeks answers which she finally discovers only she can give. Her relationship with Pete, the values and goals they share (and don't share) are thrown into sharp relief and provide a touchstone for the clearer determination of Meg's aspiration and future. Her relationship with various female friends is also revisited and this offers insight into Meg's constant checking of herself against idealised female templates. There is a crisis of identity and strength which constitutes an important fork in Meg's road. Beyond (1992): Beyond sees Meg determinedly seeking ways she can progress towards her goal, while still constantly checking against herself that postgraduate study (let alone a scholarly life) is available to her. We accompany Meg as she seeks and locates the academic path she wants; this is the backdrop for her further psychic exploration of the women who intimidate yet fascinate her, particularly Heloise Waul, who is a significant influence through Meg's postgraduate career. The sites in which Meg's personal struggles manifest are highlighted in this vignette, particularly in terms of dress and cultural pursuit. The conversations between Meg and Heloise also allow an exploration of the feminist politics of that milieu and the class tensions which operate tacitly within those politics. Bound to the Caucus (1992); Meg has now nearly completed her undergraduate degree and has been active for some time in university life and student politics. Her feminist and socialist education is well advanced. Bound to the Caucus shows us Meg in her student politics world for the first time, where the segue of her activism and academic life have taken her. Meg has found female friends who understand that part of her which struggles with inadequacy, although at this point in the novel this common struggle is not well understood or articulated. It is in this vignette that Meg admits her growing attraction for a Liberal student activist, Stuart Noble; this proscribed liaison raises many questions about values and aspiration, as well as the dominant sexual politics of the time and place. Bound to the Caucus also offers insight into the student activism occurring at universities like Philip in the early 1990s. Divergence (1993): Set in 1993, Meg is now in the early weeks of her honours program, although she has been at work on her thesis on the poet William Blake for some months. Living unhappily in a share household near the University, her relationship with Stuart Noble continues to develop, reaching a crisis point in this period. These events occur in the context of Meg's activist career in the Student Left, particularly as she encounters issues of identity around her class, feminism and difference amongst Left women. While Meg fights these battles passionately in an intense milieu, she considers them emotionally in terms of her changing sense of herself. Meg is increasingly aware that the personal impact of her class is changing for her. Additionally, she explores her relation with a 'boyfriend' of right wing political affiliation; Meg comes to recognise that this relationship is undermining her sense of herself in a way that her relationships with women in the left previously did. Honour Roll (1993): Meg is now undertaking honours and this vignette opens with Meg seeing the honours coordinator, Professor Michaela Moore, who approximates all those apparently middle-class traits to which Meg has such a push-pull relation. We see the return of a chapter of the honours thesis, discussion of the content and the constantly shifting subject positions these experiences offer Meg. This vignette also directly introduces Agnes. Mia and Agnes meet Meg after her supervision and this conversation allows very distinct if tacit class themes to develop. Meg has warmed quickly to Agnes, who is unlike anyone she has known; they have much in common in relation to their work and this binds them. Mia continually presents a viewpoint which irritates Meg, in relation to entitlement: to academic life, to funding, even to questioning how these things are enabled. Honour Roll allows us to see Meg's flourishing theoretical and intellectual life and its role in assisting her emotionally as she re-frames the same conundrums that previously constituted obstacles. The Cusp (1993): Meg's developing friendship with Agnes offers her enormous insights into difference and her developing sense of self and aspiration. While the girls come from diametrical backgrounds, they are united by their passion for their research and scholarly work. Meg is increasingly self-conscious through their discussions in terms of how she has seen herself and allowed herself to dream and seek. Cusp is set at the end of the honours year, prior to the release of results. Meg and Agnes explore their feelings about academia and this leads to discussions of purpose and the role of class within that. This vignette also documents Meg's growing social confidence and those aspects of herself which have become so sure to her, that she no longer considers them at all. Whom (1996): [Not included in this abridged edition]. Set at Cambridge, two thirds into Meg's doctorate, Whom shows Meg in the mental space which will take her back to Melbourne and the State University of Victoria. Having risen to the challenge of doctoral study, she is confronted now by deeper demons, and the need to explore and challenge them in the ambivalent context of Cambridge, which so excites her still, but which has proved empty of the profoundly held higher ideals she expected to see reflected. Set in the midst of Meg's doctoral study, this vignette is dramatically abridged in the submission novel. The importance of Whom lies in its concern with Meg's rapidly shifting sense of herself and her own scholarly subjectivity and the changes to these that the culture of Cambridge has wrought. By the second year of her PhD Meg is crystal clear about her goals and decides to spend the long break at home, rather than travelling, because she wishes to 'touch base' with her future. The action described segues into that in Courting the Enemy. Whom describes Meg's ambivalent and contradictory but passionate feelings about Cambridge. Whom demonstrates Meg's increasing anger at the status and privilege to which her education now automatically admits her, and her need to find some sort of stasis and safety in her emotional life. In this vignette, Meg meets her life partner, Jeremy McCallum (I have intentionally reduced the attention in the novel to Meg's romantic life as she matures into her career). Courting the Enemy (late 1990s): By this time, Meg is a senior lecturer in English at the State University of Victoria, which was established in the nineteenth century as the Worker's College. This vignette starts with Meg's attendance at a University Committee which is considering a transformation in relation to equity in admissions policy. Meg was drawn to SUV because of its transparent and determined commitment to educate the children of working-class people. An attack on the equity admission policy of her university galvanizes Meg and some of her colleagues. The action of the vignette considers the role of the scholar, and of such an institution as SUV, in the light of daily academic life. This vignette is primary in its demonstration of the themes of the novel. In the unabridged version, I took the opportunity to illustrate some of the vast range of administrative, intellectual and even physical demands on a senior scholar in the routine of academic life. In placing Meg in this context, I sought to highlight how a scholar of her values and commitment makes sense of the constantly shifting terrain of her working world and how this continually informs her practice. This vignette is also significant for its retrospective description of Meg's employment at SUV some years earlier. Locus: (1995). This piece of writing stands apart from the rest of the novel. I wished to write in a reflective voice, which might be from Meg's journal, were it not in the (omniscient) third person, in order to consider the headspace and meaning-making which occurs as Meg settles into Cambridge, and the lifestyle her situation allows her. Locus is a deeper engagement with Meg's sense of her identity. It considers the impact on her of the physical journeys she must make to match those of her psyche. These are thoughts too personal for a letter, even to Anna. Meg is exploring her ever shifting self and the growth in her self-belief allows her to explore what is rage; that she was bounded by illusions about her worth. Locus seeks to allow some context for Meg's anger at the role Cambridge plays. I seek to create the space in which Meg's dawning self understanding will lead her to her next, driven, purpose. Letters: throughout the novel letters are used to reveal and inform Meg's relationship with her family. This is an intentional device to distance the birth family in an attempt to blur and muddy an assessment of Meg's class through traditional measures. The letters between Meg and Aunty Jean particularly reveal much of the classed emotional antecedents of Meg's life. There are also letters exchanged with Meg's high school best friend, Anna, who has moved to the country and a very different lifestyle. Meg writes to Anna often, using the acceptance she feels in the friendship and her sense that Anna understands her, to touchstone her own emotional growth. Formal letters from institutions ring changes in settings and mark significant points in the geographical and academic trajectory of the character. All the letters serve to introduce time and event changes consistent with the episodic style of the narrative.

Warrnambool's Wesleyan heritage, 1847-1977

The thesis is about Methodism in Warrnambool. The key argument is that the Wesleyan heritage, so important to the early Wesleyan pioneers, continued to shape the life of the Warrnambool Methodist Church and was perpetuated by its leaders, in particular its local lay leaders, for a period of 130 years.

UnitingWorld : Partnership for effective involvement in mission including development

This chapter argues that, both theologically and practically, development is a form of mission and therefore dividing 'mission' and 'development' is artificial. A theological understanding of mission clearly incorporates upholding rights especially of people most excluded and vulnerable, the core task of development.One church agency involved in both development and supporting partners in communicating the gospel is UnitingWorld – the national agency of the Uniting Church in Australia responsible for international partnerships including development. The Uniting Church was formed in 1977 from the merging of three denominations, all of which had a long history of overseas engagement – for example with Fiji since 1844 and Korea since 1889. Such partnerships have endured and spread to the point where the Uniting Church now has thirty six formal partners, mainly in the Pacific and Asia.Over the past 20 years, a range of social trends, such as decolonisation, climate change, and increased global commitment to justice, as well as changes in missiological thinking, have influenced collaboration with indigenous churches as well as organisations not explicitly Christian.Recolonising approaches by international inter-government bodies and by the Australian government through promoting predominantly western neo-liberal economic values to neighbours, invites the church to collaborate in valuing partner cultures, spiritualities, values and world-views. For UnitingWorld this is most evident in its Pacific engagement, especially with programs arising from the Pacific Conference of Churches.These factors have further relativised the tensions between what was seen as “mission” and what was seen as “development”. Evangelism as communication of good news exhibits a different hue – now coming out of the natural conversations between partners and speaking of God’s life- giving alternatives to destructive social and economic models. Whilst development is inherent in mission, the major challenge faced by UnitingWorld is with Protestant partners strongly influenced by an era of church teaching that emphasised personal commitment tied to distinctive religious expressions.In this chapter we use case studies from the Pacific to show how UnitingWorld is partnering with a range of church and other organisations to support people in exercising their rights and re-engaging Australian church communities in this task.

Cultural connections across time and place : Wardell's late 19th century Genazzano FCJ College Kew

The Catholic Church was profoundly affected by the 1872 Victorian Education Act, which made education secular, compulsory and free, and led to the withdrawal of state aid to religious schools. In order for the Church to run its own schools, it had to look overseas for help and invited religious teaching orders, such as the Faithful Companions of Jesus (FCJs) to set up schools in Victoria, Australia. In many instances purpose built buildings were designed by architects. William Wardell was well established in private practice in Sydney when he designed the new Convent and School, Kew, Victoria, for the FCJ Sisters, in the late 1880s. Building commenced just before the crash of Marvellous Melbourne. Less than half of the total concept of Wardell’s original plan was built. It opened for business in April 1891. Today this building forms the heart of the contemporary Genazzano FCJ College Kew. Many histories intersect in this commission. The vision for Catholic education in Victoria in the late 19th century is critical. The FCJs charism and their experience of teaching in Europe, in France, England, Ireland, Italy and Switzerland, provides a model for their work in Australia. At this time the importance of architecture to society is made manifest in education and its demands on building: if learning is valued then buildings should reflect this, for public buildings can shape morality. Wardell was trained as a Gothic Revival architect and his building participates in a broader medieval and Gothic tradition. Wardell’s original plan for this late Victorian Gothic style asymmetrical three-storeyed building, was designed to integrate a convent, school, chapel, and dormitories. This paper considers architectural history from diverse perspectives, educational, social, religious, economic and political, recognising the complexity of this project and the people who played a part in its conception and realisation.