Common cold, exercise and feeling fit!

Reported all over the place last week here in the UK.  Read the original paper!

Conclusions, Perceived physical fitness and frequency of aerobic exercise are important correlates of reduced days with URTI and severity of symptoms during the winter and fall common cold seasons.

Nieman, D., Henson, D., Austin, M., & Sha, W. Upper respiratory tract infection is reduced in physically fit and active adults. British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology Conference 2010

I will be attending the Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology conference which is being held in London on 9/10th December 2010, full details are here. I get to sit on the DSEP committee as a representative as a result of being on the committee  of  PSYPAG, (Psychology Postgraduate Affairs Group). Psypag are a great organisation for Psychology postgraduates and currently have several bursary scheme for UK postgraduate students, details here.  At the conference I will be manning the Psypag stand for at least one of the days so pop over and join the mailing list!

PsyPAG maintains a JISCmail list open to ALL psychology postgraduate students and is located here. This list is a fantastic resource for support and advice regarding your research, statistical advice or postgraduate issues.

You can also follow PsyPAG on Twitter and on Facebook.

Useful paper I found this week;

Silva, M., Vieira, P., Coutinho, S., Minderico, C., Matos, M., Sardinha, L., et al. (2010). Using self-determination theory to promote physical activity and weight control: a randomized controlled trial in women. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 33(2), 110-122

Exercise for overweight or obesity

This report is a systematic review of the evidence on Exercise for overweight or obesity.  It's in the form of a  Cochrane Report.  The Cochrane Collaboration is an international, independent, not-for-profit organisation of over 27,000 contributors from more than 100 countries, dedicated to making up-to-date, accurate information about the effects of health care readily available worldwide.  It is a thorough review of the evidence in the area of obesity and exercise and its about as good a review as you will find anywhere.  The report is long, detailed and extremely useful.  I refer to it frequently and i'm sure i will do in the future too!  The report can be found here.







Shaw K, Gennat H, O'Rourke P, & Del Mar C (2006). Exercise for overweight or obesity. Cochrane database of systematic reviews (Online) (4) PMID: 17054187

Physical Activity and Obesity

This article examines the role of physical activity and obesity.  It gives a useful summary of the decline of physical activity and its relevance to obesity.  It also examines the role of PA in terms of weight management and weight loss.  Hills et al. (2006) has an excellent table to illustrate where declines in physical activity in daily life may come from.

Population-wide declines in physical activity (modified from Brownson et al., 2005)

• Leisure-time physical activity: level or slightly increasing
• Work-related activity: declining
• Transportation activity: declining
• Activity in the home: declining; and
• Sedentary activity: increasing; therefore, total physical activity is declining


Hills argues that the role of increased energy expenditure through  physical activity is the key to weight loss and long term weight maintenance.The paper is available in full here .  The relationship between decline in physical activity and weight management has been covered in several previous posts.  My own favourite is Obesity in Britain: gluttony or sloth? which examines the calorific intake in the UK diet over a 20 year period and established that it has declined.  They concluded that physical activity in everyday life had declined and that this was especially the case for children.


Hills, A., & Byrne, N. (2006). State of the science: a focus on physical activity. Asia Pac J Clin Nutr, 15, 40-48.

Brownson, R., Boehmer, T., & Luke, D. (2005). Declining rates of physical activity in the United States: what are the contributors? Annual review of public health, 26, 421.  (Abstract only)

Prentice, A., & Jebb, S. (1995). Obesity in Britain: gluttony or sloth? British medical journal, 311(7002), 437








Hills AP, & Byrne NM (2006). State of the science: a focus on physical activity. Asia Pacific journal of clinical nutrition, 15 Suppl, 40-8 PMID: 16928660