A major challenge for global health in the 21st century is the low physical activity level observed throughout the lifecourse, and a major challenge for athletic performance is the neglect of athletes’ physical and mental health. Individual lifestyles may cause health problems, but can also be essential for improving health and/or athletic performance.
Our research concerns primarily of the following lifecourses and groups:
- Children and adolescents
- Athletes
- Students
- Occupational groups, e.g., police officers, personal trainers and group fitness instructors
- Clinical groups, e.g., type 2 diabetes, morbid obesity, eating disorders, schizophrenia
- Elderly
Academic disciplines involved
- Genetics; epigenetics
- Exercise physiology
- Nutrition
- Life course developmental psychology
- Health psychology
- Mental health work
- Physical education
- Pedagogy
Research topics
Children and adolescents
- School-based physical activity
- School yards and physical activity affordances
- Motor skills and physical fitness in children and adolescents
- Physically active learning
Athletes
- Lifestyle in athletes
- Reproductive health in athletes
- Performance predictors in 800 m running
- Injuries in football
Students
- Body image and lifestyle in various student populations
- Physical fitness in police academy students
Occupational groups
- Health in shift workers
- Belonging and good mental health in the workplace
- Working and living conditions for personal trainers
- Health in group fitness instructors and personal trainers
Clinical groups
- Exercise and type II diabetes
- Exercise and obesity
- Exercise and eye health
- Exercise and eating disorders
- Implementation of physical activity in rehabilitation
Elderly
- Physiological adaptation to strength training and ageing
- Physiological adaptation to endurance training and ageing
National collaborators
External member: Jarle Berge (Kysthospitalet and Polithøgskolen)
Partners:
- Vestfold and Telemark county
- Telemark hospital
- Vestfold Hospital
- Senter for sykelig overvekt at Helse Sør-Øst
- Modum Bad psychiatric center
- DNT
- Exercise referral centrals in Telemark and Buskerud
- Telemarksforskning
- Mental Helse
- Erfaringskompetanse.no (Skien)
- GREP (Porsgrunn)
- Porsgrunn Vidergående skole
- OsloMet
- University of Agder
- NTNU
- Western University of Applied Sciences
- Østfold University College
- Norwegian Police Academy (Stavern)
- Norwegian School of Sport Sciences
International collaborators
- Loughborough University
- Trinity St Davids University (UK)
- University of Southern Denmark
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- University of Utah
- Ramapo College (USA), and the International Network in Sport and Health Sciences (INSHS)
- Collaboration with University of Dayton (USA) is under establishment
