On lenses and blind spots in qualitative exercise and environment research: A Response to Stephanie Coen.

Qualitative research focused on how people experience the social and material environments in which they exercise has the potential to inform public health agendas in all sorts of ways. This commentary takes up the claim made by Stephanie Coen that such research should begin with an 'equity lens' and place a greater emphasis on 'critique' than we did in the 'Exercise and Environment' special issue to which she responds. At its best qualitative research reveals new ways of thinking about the social and material contexts at hand. As such, it has the potential to highlight important dimensions of the lived experience of popular fitness practices that may have hitherto been relatively overlooked. Always starting with the overt aim of applying an 'equity lens' truncates the possibility of discovering such dimensions. Furthermore, being too wedded to an overtly critical stance may end up hindering, rather than encouraging, the most positive dialogue between those studying the cotemporary exercise experience and those involved in public health.

Exercise and environment: New qualitative work to link popular practice and public health.

The health benefits of physical activity are many and well known. Those hoping to promote public health are therefore understandably keen on encouraging physical exercise. This commentary considers the role of qualitative research in this undertaking, given a context in which medical researchers have more commonly taken a quantitative approach to the motivations that are thought to underpin exercise. Our core argument is that studies concerned with how particular environments are inhabited by particular groups of exercisers could play a more central part in public health promotion. In making this case, and by way of an introduction to this Health and Place special issue, we present a series of statements that we think could usefully guide the further development of this work. Specifically, we argue for further attention to: the ways in which different material settings play into the exercise experience; how many of the exercise practices that we may hope to understand sit rather uneasily with the idea of sport; the subtleties of how sociality features in contemporary exercise practices; the physical pleasures that come from exercise; and how exercise practices are both acquired by individuals and evolve as a whole. In so doing, the aim is to encourage relevant researchers to engage more directly in conversation with health promoters instead of either being indifferent to, or critical of, them.

How 'social' is recreational running? Findings from a qualitative study in London and implications for public health promotion.

Recreational running is increasingly widespread and could therefore be seen as the obvious target for those hoping to encourage greater public health through exercise. Existing qualitative research on this topic has, however, tended to focus on groups of highly committed runners. It is accordingly unclear whether their findings can be extrapolated to the much larger population of comparatively casual runners. This existing work has also tended to emphasise the social nature of the activity in particular ways. Whilst much recreational running happens alone, most commonly these studies have centred on the establishment of shared identities and group subcultures. Drawing on a study involving accompanied runs and interviews with recreational runners who do not belong to running clubs in London, this paper presents an alternative account. These respondents were relatively uninterested in the idea of proper running technique, ambivalent about the presence of others when running, and reticent about being pulled into a more committed collective practice. In view of how these more casual runners may be of particular interest to public health promoters, this finding suggests future campaigns might do well not to focus too greatly on the potential enjoyments of running community membership and start instead with a different set of social dynamics.

The history of a habit: jogging as a palliative to sedentariness in 1960s America.

This article provides an account of the emergence of jogging as mass physical fitness practice in America in the 1960s. It explores how jogging was configured as a physical fitness activity suitable for sedentary middle-aged men and women. Jogging developed as a counter to the ill-effects of habits entrained by the increasingly sedentary lifestyles of modern industrialized urban and suburban dwellers. The paper traces the development of jogging as a defined exercise routine at the University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon. Focusing on the moment when jogging is 'invented' as a recognizable fitness practice tells a great deal about the origin of contemporary regimes of physical fitness for the middle-aged population and how they have evolved. It also points to the significance of understanding how the shaping of corporeal habits play into the making of (1) individual bodies, (2) common practices of corporeal care and activity, and (3) environments of physical activity.