Media releases

• Child participants needed for Brock muscle research

  Tuesday, August 03, 2021 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: 3 August 2021 – R0083

  On the surface, differences between adults and children may seem obvious. Adults are bigger, stronger and faster than children, presumably because adults have had more time for their muscles to grow and develop.

  But is time the only factor that accounts for differences between adults’ and children’s muscles? Are there areas in which children may have a competitive advantage over adults?

  PhD student Stacey Woods is determined to find out. She is looking for boys between the ages of seven and 12 to perform a variety of physical activities in her team’s laboratory at Brock University.

  Woods is examining factors that contribute to muscle activation during different types of actions and in different muscles. She will examine muscle contractions in which muscles are shortened or become tense, and muscle fatigue, which is the decline in the muscle’s power capacity.

  “We’re asking the research participants to do high-intensity and low-intensity exercise and endurance-type tasks,” she says. “We’re using some new technology called surface electromyography decomposition, or surface dEMG, to assess their muscle actions.”

  Data Woods collects from participants’ exercises will ultimately compare muscle activation between children and adults.

  Woods’ research began last year, but COVID-19 restrictions stalled the in-person portion of the research. With Brock now in the third stage of its reopening, “we’re following very strict procedures for the safety of the participants and the safety of researchers,” says Woods. “We’re trying to make it work while being very accommodating.”

  Those interested in participating in the study should contact Woods at [email protected] or call the lab at 905-688-5550 x5623.

  The study is part of work underway by a larger Brock research team that is examining the effect of exercise and physical training on bone health and on neuromuscular function during growth and maturation.

  Heading the team are pediatric exercise physiologists Bareket Falk and Nota Klentrou, whose current work focuses on the effect of growth, maturation and physical activity on muscle function and on bone development.

  “Children’s muscles don’t function the same way as adults’ muscles,” says Falk, a Professor of Kinesiology. “They have their unique particularities and respond to exercise differently.”

  With her study, Woods is aiming to test the team’s theory that children use less of their ‘fast-twitch’ muscles than adults do.

  Fast-twitch, or Type 2, muscles, are used in movements that require quick, short energy bursts like what are needed for powerlifting or sprinting.

  In contrast, ‘slow-twitch,’ or Type 1, muscles support sustained movements and hold postures. They have much more of an oxygen supply than Type 2 muscles.

  “We’re hypothesizing that during all these different tasks that participants will undertake, we’ll see a difference in performance, which is due to this lesser activation of these faster, Type 2 muscles,” says Woods.

  But, the flip side is that children’s Type 1 muscles enable them to sustain movements for a long time, perhaps even more than adults.

  “The interesting thing is, if you make exercise relative, kids can produce the same amount of force for a longer period of time —­ they’re more resistant to fatigue,” says master’s student James Maynard.

  Maynard is finishing his thesis on his study comparing muscle use in children and adults. He says his team believes that children use about 85 per cent of their muscle fibres compared to around 95 per cent that adults use.

  Maynard, Woods and Falk say their team’s insights into children’s muscle use could inform rehabilitation and exercise training programs for children.

  “When we prescribe activity to children, it shouldn’t be based on what we know is good for adults,” says Falk, who received Brock University’s 2021 Award for Distinguished Research and Creative Activity for her work.

  “We’ve been applying adult guidelines to children’s exercise where this doesn’t always lead us to good results,” she says.

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

  * Dan Dakin, Manager Communications and Media Relations, Brock University [email protected] or 905-347-1970

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  Categories: Media releases

• Young people resist adopting key actions to mitigate climate change, says Brock research

  Thursday, July 29, 2021 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: 29 July 2021 – R0082

  Although young Canadians are taking steps to address climate change, they don’t plan on adopting the three lifestyle changes that are most effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, says new research from Brock University.

  In a cross-Canada survey of 17- and 18-year-olds, many youth identified recycling, using public transport and conserving energy in the home as actions they had adopted to mitigate climate change.

  But they were less open to eating a reduced amount of red meat, purchasing an electric car, or having one fewer child or no children, says the study, “Lifestyle decisions and climate mitigation: current action and behavioural intent of youth.”

  “Eighty per cent of youth say they recycle, but recycling is 300 times less effective at reducing greenhouse gas emissions than having one less child, and youth are very resistant to that,” says Brock Professor of Biological Sciences and Psychology Gary Pickering, the study’s lead author.

  In their study, Pickering, along with recent Brock graduate Kaylee Schoen and Marta Botta, an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Sustainability Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, asked participants questions about their climate change beliefs and knowledge, how in control they felt about taking action, whether or not they believe their actions have an impact, their religious background and beliefs, political affiliation, diet, and basic demographics such as age and gender.

  Participants were then presented with nine actions and asked to indicate which ones they are currently practising.

  The actions vary in how much they can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They are, from most to least impactful: having one fewer child/no children; no car or first/next car will be electric; eating less red meat; taking public transport; conserving energy in the home; vacationing locally; recycling; conserving water; and avoiding excessive packaging.

  The second part of the study sought to predict participants’ willingness to adopt these climate change mitigation measures.

  The researchers used modelling to pinpoint where participants were at in the stages leading up to action and to identify a range of factors used to predict intentions for future behaviours.

  Key findings include:

  • Seventeen-year-olds are more likely than 18-year-olds to be performing at least four of the nine actions listed in the study, possibly because 18-year-olds may have left the family home and are in the process of creating their own actions and beliefs independent of family influence.
  • An internal environmental locus of control — the belief that one has real agency and can ‘make a difference’ through lifestyle choices — predicted engagement in several mitigation actions.
  • Behaviours and attitudes modelled by parents, teachers, friends and even celebrities were the strongest predictors for whether youth would, or would not, take action to eat less red meat, drive an electric car, or have one less or no children.

  “Social norms have a very strong effect on what youth are doing around climate mitigation and on what they say they are planning to do,” says Pickering.

  He hopes his team’s findings will help transform high school curricula in the area of climate change and the environment.

  “Climate change education in Canadian schools, limited as it is, focuses on environmental science,” he says. “There’s practically nothing in the curricula that addresses the question of what I can do as an individual and how much of a difference each of my actions and inactions make to climate mitigation.”

  The research makes a number of recommendations of how educators and communicators can reach youth with key messaging on climate change and mitigation strategies, and Pickering urges parents to model climate change behaviours for their children.

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

  * Dan Dakin, Manager Communications and Media Relations, Brock University [email protected] or 905-347-1970

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  Categories: Media releases