The Place of Sport and Physical Activity in Young People's Lives and its Implications for Health: Some Sociological Comments

This exploratory paper seeks, first, to offer some critical sociological comments on the common-sense, or rather ideological, claims surrounding two supposedly emerging ‘crises’: namely, the alleged poor health and declining sport and physical activity participation levels of young people. In this regard, it is suggested that while young people are, in fact, doing more sport and physical activity than at any other time in the past, this process has, and continues to, co-occur with other prominent social processes (e.g., rising levels of overweight, obesity and sedentariness). Second, the paper begins to make sense of this seemingly ‘irreconcilable paradox’ by arguing for the need to make use of a sociological perspective that views the complexity of young people's lives ‘in the round’ and by locating them within the particular social interdependencies or relationships in which they are inescapably involved.