Football and health improvement: an emerging field (original) (raw)
Related papers
Football for health: getting strategic
Community foundations and charities operating within professional football clubs are being championed as a vehicle to deliver on the Public Health agenda. This personal commentary from the authors offers insight into the context of football for health drawing on the relevant research literature and their experiences working within the football industry in England. The football and health examples highlight under-resourced and under-evaluated interventions, whilst highlighting the importance of partnership working. The authors hope to support those in football and health in getting strategic through their interventions, evaluations and partnerships, in order to capitalize the potential of football in supporting the objectives of Public Health England.
Retracted article: Football and physical health: what do we know?
Sport in Society, 2016
Our current understanding is that football is a popular intervention option and can offer valuable health improvement programme success. This includes interventions delivered by professional football clubs and their respective in the community programmes, as well as other sports clubs organizing recreational football and Football Fitness, which is small-sided football training rather than competitive 11v11 matches. This article seeks to communicate an understanding of the role of football in physical health improvement using research, grey literature and policy documentation undertaken predominantly across the UK and Europe. The core themes that emerge from the review include the following health conditions and behaviours: overweight and obese, cardiovascular disease and lifestyle-related diseases; and the following target groups: children and young people, men, women and older adults, including Black, minority and ethnic groups. The evidence supports the health effects of football for these conditions and behaviours across the lifespan through controlled interventions and through community-based football programmes. The article concludes with a number of practical implications to improve the effectiveness of football-led physical health interventions.
Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 2013
Concerns about gender inequalities in longevity, particularly premature male mortality, have prompted a range of innovative approaches to health promotion work with men dating back to the 1980s. In developing such work, sport, and football in particular, has emerged as a gendered cultural field that has utility for engaging men in health initiatives. Evaluations of such work, whilst few in number, have shown that health initiatives using football settings, football based interventions, or even football club branding, can have positive impact on various health measures in the short and the longer term. However, little work to date has looked at the underlying mechanisms that generate success in such projects. This paper presents secondary analysis of data collected during the evaluation of the Premier League Health (PLH) programme specifically focusing on these underlying mechanisms and how/where gender (masculinities) appears in these processes. We draw on interview data with sixteen staff who had been involved in the delivery of the PLH initiative and fifty-eight men who took part. Thematic analysis highlighted two overarching (and underpinning) themes: 'Trust', what processes it was key to and how it was developed and sustained; 'Change', including what it was facilitated by and what impact it had. The paper adds to our understanding of how active listening, flexibility and sustained engagement are key to sports based projects generating success. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the physicality and sociability of involvement, rather than any direct focus on 'health' was important in acting as a springboard for facilitating reflection and aiding lifestyle changes for the men in line with PLH programme desired outcomes.
Watching Football as Medicine: promoting health at the football stadium
2019
This chapter assesses the potential that watching football at stadia holds for health promotion. Football matches serve as a release for fans from their everyday life and resultantly becomes a site where they can engage in indulgent behaviour by eating and drinking to excess. However, the European Healthy Stadia Network provides a variety of initiatives that are designed to encourage healthier practices at stadia. The chapter critically examines the food provided at stadia, highlighting those attributes that may result in it being healthy or unhealthy and the measures needed to move towards healthier stadia. Away from food, we also detail a number of evidence-based programmes that encourage football fans to be more physically active. The first of these is the Football Fans in Training programme, which used sports clubs and their stadia to target men, a hard-to-reach population group. A variety of subsequent programmes from Europe, New Zealand, and Australia are also analysed. The po...
2016
The present study evaluated a nationwide exercise intervention with Football Fitness in a small-scale society. In all, 741 adult participants (20-72 yrs) were successfully recruited for Football Fitness training in local football clubs, corresponding to 2.1% of the adult population. A preintervention test battery including resting heart rate (RHR), blood pressure, and body mass measurements along with performance tests (Yo-Yo Intermittent Endurance level 1 (Yo-Yo IE1), the Arrowhead Agility Test, and the Flamingo Balance Test) were performed (= 502). Training attendance (= 310) was 1.6 ± 0.2 sessions per week (range: 0.6-2.9), corresponding to 28.8 ± 1.0 sessions during the 18 wk intervention period. After 18 wks mean arterial pressure (MAP) was −2.7 ± 0.7 mmHg lower (< 0.05; = 151) with even greater (< 0.05) reductions for those with baseline MAP values >99 mmHg (−5.6 ± 1.5 mmHg; = 50). RHR was lowered (< 0.05) by 6 bpm after intervention (77 ± 1 to 71 ± 1 bpm). Yo-Yo IE1 performance increased by 41% (540 ± 27 to 752 ± 45 m), while agility and postural balance were improved (< 0.05) by ∼6 and ∼45%, respectively. In conclusion, Football Fitness was shown to be a successful health-promoting nationwide training intervention for adult participants with an extraordinary recruitment, a high attendance rate, moderate adherence, high exercise intensity, and marked benefits in cardiovascular health profile and fitness.