Diary of an academic mum

Dr Breanne Kunstler (BBiomedSci, BHealthSci, MPhysio, PhD).  Physiotherapist, behaviour change scientist and run coach. My last post involved talking about the potential positives of being isolated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now it's time to talk about some of the negatives. But, I'm not going to talk about the immediate negatives like poor health and economic outcomes . Instead, I'm going to focus specifically on the future negatives. What could go wrong when we encourage the entire Australian population to stay indoors? Image 1: Will you look circle-like after self-isolation? (credit: Bored Panda ) For those who don't know, I am a researcher and do a lot of work in changing health behaviours (e.g. supporting people to exercise more). So this pandemic has made me not only fear for our current health, but also our future health as a result of the lifestyle changes we'll make as we transition to increasing the amount of time spent indoors trying to dodg...

Dr Breanne Kunstler (BBiomedSci, BHealthSci, MPhysio, PhD). Many who are close to me know that, as a physical activity researcher and physiotherapist, I am passionate about supporting people to become physically active. I enjoy being physically active myself and do something active every day simply because it makes me feel good, like a warm bed on a cold night ( well, maybe not that good ). I am also a co-convenor of Physiotherapists for Physical Activity (P4PA) , which is an Australia-wide group (with some international members too!) of physiotherapists and physical activity researchers who are passionate about increasing the capability of physiotherapists to change physical activity behaviours of all Australians. Our ultimate goal is to see each and every Australian participate in some kind of physical activity that suits their abilities, all the way from moving their legs in bed if they are bed-ridden to participating in their first fun run if they are more independent, and...

Dr Breanne Kunstler (BBiomedSci, BHealthSci, MPhysio, PhD).  Physiotherapist, behaviour change scientist and run coach.   This is part two of my blog post on the tendency for people to set new year’s resolutions that involve weight loss, rather than focusing more broadly on achieving good health. This post was inspired by my personal reflection on my relationship with food and exercise since giving birth to my daughter four months ago. If you haven’t read that post yet, then please read it here as I will be referring to it throughout this post. Let’s pick up where we left off Let me return to the question I ended yesterday’s post on.  How do we focus on ways of eating, exercising and participating in other behaviours that can support physical, mental and social wellbeing (“ health ”) instead of just taking the mental shortcut and focusing on becoming thin? I believe it requires a shift in our thinking from eating to lose weight, which involves surren...

Dr Breanne Kunstler (BBiomedSci, BHealthSci, MPhysio, PhD).  Physiotherapist, behaviour change scientist and run coach.   A little about me I gave birth to a healthy and lively baby girl almost four months ago on 13 September 2019. I ate foods to fuel my pregnant body and exercised to keep myself fit and strong, all with the aim of growing a healthy baby while keeping myself healthy, throughout my entire pregnancy. This approach, as well as the perceived inability to eat large quantities of food due to general discomfort and heartburn, led to a very healthy pregnancy (Image 1). I ate when I was hungry, stopped eating when I was full and exercised when and how I wanted to. This was so simple; I was just acting on intuition. Childbirth was bloody hard, the recovery painful and the sleepless nights that ensued were relentless. Pretty standard experience I’d say. Image 1: Me in my third trimester at my baby shower (credit: Facebook ) The focus on weight loss in th...