Ellie Gennings (PhD Student & PTHP Lecturer at the University of Winchester, Department of Sport, Exercise & Health) writes:
“It is understood that physical activity and the natural environment is beneficial for mental health and well-being. I am researching the role of blue exercise (exercise conducted in a natural setting which is predominantly blue space e.g. coastlines, rivers) on young people’s (aged 11-16) well-being.
For both conceptual and methodological reasons, there is not a valid or accessible measure of young people’s well-being for me to use to assess the relationship between blue exercise and well-being. I am therefore in the midst of developing and validating my own measure of young people’s well-being. Once developed I will be conducting an intervention study with the Andrew Simpson Sailing Foundation to investigate whether participation in their sailing courses improves the well-being of young people over the course of at least 1 month.
Well-being is one aspect of mental health and although my research is focused on a different population, there are similarities and interesting differences within the literature of young people and students which I hope to explore more as a part of SMARTEN [Student Mental Health Research Network] …”
You can read more – and contact Ellie Jennings if you’d like to be involved (she is looking to collaborate with organisations who work with young people aged 11-16) – from here.
