NEWS EXERCISE UPDATE

ACTIVITY BOOSTS BODY IMAGE

A study published in the September issue of the Journal of Health Psychology has revealed that just the simple act of exercise and not fitness itself can convince you that you look better.

The study, which took place at the University of Florida, reveals that people who exercise, but don’t achieve workout milestones such as losing fat, gaining strength or boosting cardiovascular fitness, feel just as good about their bodies as their more athletic counterparts. It is the first study to systematically analyse the wide-ranging effects of exercise on body image. Source: Medical News Today http://bit.ly/ActiveBodies

Kick it with exercise

Exercise can help smokers quit because it makes cigarettes less

attractive according to a new study from the University of Exeter. The study shows for the first time that exercise

can lessen the power of cigarettes and

smoking-related images to tempt smokers.

The study which was published in the journal, Addiction, involved 20 moderately

heavy smokers, who had not smoked for 15 hours before the trial. The smokers visited the laboratory twice and on the first occasion were shown smoking-related and neutral images, and then spent

either 15 minutes sitting or exercising on a stationary bike

also how quickly pictures of cigarettes could grab their attention, compared with non-smoking matched images.

The study showed an 11% difference between the time

the participants spent looking at the smoking- related images after exercise, compared the

at a moderate intensity. After this, they were again shown the images during which the research team used the latest eye tracking technology to measure and record their precise eye movements. They were able to show not only the length of time people looked at smoking-related images but

period of sitting. Also, after exercise, participants took longer to look at smoking- related images leading

researchers to conclude that exercise appears to reduce the power of the smoking- related images to grab visual attention. Source: Addiction http://bit.ly/KickIt or Medical News Today version http://bit.ly/KickIt2

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The REPs Journal 2009;15(Oct):10-12