Meridith Griffin

Overview

Dr. Meridith Griffin, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health, Aging & Society at McMaster University and an Associate Director of the Gilbrea Centre for Studies in Aging. She is Principal Investigator of a SSHRC Insight Grant titled “Physical Activity for Any-Body,” a collaborative ethnographic study that aims to unpack the relationship between health and/or wellness imperatives, the body positivity movement, sport and physical activity participation, and the so-called non-normative body. Specifically, this research seeks to understand, strengthen, and build up the facets of physical cultures that make them inclusive of all community members regardless of ability, age, body size, gender, income, race, or sexuality.

Dr. Griffin’s research focuses on embodied lived experiences of physical activity and active leisure participation. She often takes a life course perspective to understand how and why people make choices and engage (or not) in movement-related pursuits and other health-conscious behaviours. Rooted in a critical perspective that straddles the disciplinary boundaries of social gerontology, sociology of sport/physical activity, leisure studies, and sociological social psychology, she employs qualitative methodologies, including participatory, ethnographic, narrative, visual and arts-based methods.

Affiliations

• Associate Professor
• Faculty of Social Sciences, McMaster University
• Member, McMaster Institute for Research on Aging (MIRA), McMaster University
• Member, Gilbrea Centre for Studies in Aging, Faculty of Social Sciences
• Associate Professor, Health, Aging & Society, Faculty of Social Sciences

Education

• BKin Hons (Kinesiology), McMaster University
• MA (Human Kinetics), University of British Columbia
• PhD (Sport and Health Sciences), University of Exeter
• Postdoctoral Fellow, European Centre for the Environment and Human Health