Bodies, bias & belonging: who gets to be healthy?

While most young people are out running, playing, and exploring, many with disability are left on the sidelines, not because they want to be, but because communities have not been built with them in mind. Physical activity can unite people, creating connection and belonging through shared joy and challenge. While many experience this power, for many with disabilities access to physical activity is a luxury, not a given. Our work aims to build a cross-sector community of practice to help professionals and volunteers better support disabled young people to be active.

Streaming, or grouping players by ability, is a widespread practice in youth sport, yet remains under-researched. This talk examines how streaming is experienced in practice from the perspective of players, parents and coaches. While largely seen as adaptive, offering benefits for teamship and appropriate challenge across ability levels, challenges around resource allocation and flexibility persist in addition to issues concerning the understanding of athletes motivation across different ability groups.

Osteosarcoma is the most common bone cancer in adolescents and young adults. Lung metastasis represents the most critical adverse prognostic factor, drastically reducing survival rate. The understanding of the development of lung metastasis is limited as this is a complex process. Increasing evidence suggests that the primary tumour can reprogram other organs to best suit cancer metastasis. My project aims to overcome this by developing an in vitro model which the metastatic process. Using this model, we will investigate the initiation of lung metastasis from osteosarcoma.

This talk explores societies' fixation on weight and the perpetuating problem of weight stigma. Considering the role of body image and broadening perspectives on health.