Sports or Physical Activity for the Inactive World: Should we be Encouraging Safer Physical Activity Patterns more than Sports?
Physical activity has both direct and indirect effects for preventing several chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease (CVD), obesity, diabetes and cancer. Healthcare policies across the globe have developed numerous strategies to encourage physical activity with several calls for action to prevent and decrease overweight and obesity, such as calls for action in the US Department for health and Human Services in 2001, the UK House of Commons Health Committee report on obesity and the Department of Health physical activity guidelines in 2004.2-4 Moreover, numerous implementation initiatives have encouraged physical activity and sports participation with an aim of achieving health outcomes and cost saving strategies for healthcare.
In particular, team sports injuries such as soccer that tend to peak during the teen years. Perhaps the common Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries provide a simple example of how recreational soccer results in adverse effects on physical activity participation.
The most recent government policies in the UK have continued to recommend “Playing sport helps to keep people healthy and is good for communities. Playing sport at school or in a local club is also
the first step to competition at the highest level”.5 Playing competitive sport has also formed a large part of the London 2012 Olympics legacy, despite questionable outcomes in terms of sustainable populations’ participation and the associated health outcomes, since it was first implemented in 2004.
Obes Res Open J. 2015; 2(3): e10-e11. doi: 10.17140/OROJ-2-e004