Neville Owen
Cancer Prevention Research Centre, School of Population Health, The University of Queensland, Australia
Citation
Owen, N. (2009). Exercise Psychology: Building ecological underpinnings for public-health action. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 40(1), 177-181.
Abstract
Exercise psychology is a diverse and highly-active field. Within this field, ecological frameworks are providing strong conceptual guidance to a number of research domains. A particular strength of ecological frameworks, as the four papers in this Special Issue demonstrate, is their focus on how people and environmental attributes interact, in differing physical activity contexts. There is much to be gained from developing and applying ecological approaches to physical activity behaviours. Ecological approaches are par- ticularly needed if we are to comprehensively address the challenges of increasing the physical activity participation levels of whole populations (Biddle & Mutrie, 2008; Sallis & Owen, 1999). There is the potential to reduce a significant portion of the burden imposed by ‘diseases of inactivi- ty’— particularly type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease (United States Department of Health and Human Services, 1996), and breast and colon cancer (Lee, 2003). More than half of the adult populations of industrialised countries being insufficiently physically active for health benefits (Bauman, Armstrong, Davies, Owen, Brown, Bellew & Vita, 2003).
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