The Netherlands is known globally for its widespread use of bicycles and some call it a “cycling nation”. Indeed, many Dutch inhabitants own a bike and cycle frequently. Numbers show that 84% of the Dutch inhabitants from age 4 years and older own a bike. Those owners have an average of 1.3 bikes per person. This results in 18 million bikes in the Netherlands and 13.5 million bike owners.6 The Dutch use their bike as a means of transportation, but also for sports and exercise. Bike-use fits well in an active lifestyle and it is highly plausible that cycling is responsible for a large part of the daily physical activity in Dutch youth. It is estimated that Dutch people have on average a 6 months longer life expectancy attributable to bicycle use.7 It seems that the nation itself is well shaped to cycle: no large mountains, only a few small hills, and an extensive layout of cycle paths and routes in every city and village. In many urban areas separate cycle paths are very common. Our results show that many Dutch children use the bike as their way of transportation. It was demonstrated that active transportation is responsible for a large part of schoolrelated physical activity in Dutch youth.8 80% of 12-17 year-old children cycled three or more days to or from school/work.9 This resulted in an ‘A’ for the indicator active transportation (walking is included in the grade as well). Active transport is associated with increased total physical activity among youth.10,11 Also evidence is reported for an association between active transport and a healthier body composition and healthier level of cardiorespiratory fitness among youth. Although Dutch children accumulate a lot of daily physical activity through cycling, it is not enough to meet the current national physical activity guidelines of 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day. Even though cycling is an important component to the amount of daily physical activity, Dutch youth are not cycling to health
Numerous medical studies have shown the positive effects of forests on different aspects of human health. This study deals with the content of major terpenes in dominant coniferous species in Tara National Park, Serbia, in order to explore the potential for the development of a novel health tourism programme based on forest therapy. Main terpenes were analysed using a headspace-sam-pling technique coupled with gas-chromatography-mass spectrometry (Head-space-GC/MS). Nee-dles of fir and spruce growing in the vicinity of hiking trails were investigated for possibilities to perform such therapy. Major detected terpenes were α-cadinol and spathulenol previously de-scribed as antiviral, antitumor, antimicrobial and immunomodulatory agents. The results of the study were favourable and worked well with the existing walking infrastructure in the observed area of the Tara Mountain, as they act as invaluable resources for designing the structured forest bathing walks. The study not only adds to the knowledge in the environmental and public health realm but also to tourism and sustainability studies.
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The essays collected here are based on two decades of engagement with the residents of the slums of Govindpuri in India’s capital, Delhi. The book presents stories of many kinds, from speculative treatises, via the recollection of a thousand everyday conversations, to an account of the making of a radio documentary.Zig-zagging through the lanes of Govindpuri, Listening into Others explores the vibrant sounds emanating from slum culture. Redefining ethnography as listening in passing, Chandola excels at narrating the stories of the everyday. The ubiquity of smartphones, sonic selfies, wailing, the ethics of wearing jeans, the crossroad rituals of elections, the political agency of slum-dwellers, the war of the sexes through bodily gestures, and conflicts over ownership of both property and sound generated in the slums — these are among the many encounters Chandola opens up to the reader.Slums are anxious spaces in the materiality, experience, and imagination of a city. They are the by-products of the violent and exploitative mechanisms of urbanization. What becomes of the slum-dwellers, who universally, across centuries, cities and continents, befall similar fates of being discriminated, reckoned to be the scum of the earth, and a burden on society? By listening to identified others and amplifying their voices in their own vocabularies and grammar, Tripta Chandola’s praxis creates a methodological, political, and poetic rupture. Slums, she finds, are not anathema to the city’s past, present, or future. They are an integral component of urbanization and a foundational part of the city.With Listening into Others, Tripta Chandola poses the question: ‘Who owns the slum, and who determines which voices are heard? From where you are, listen with me.’
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