Sports participation as an investment in (subjective) health: a time series analysis of the life course

Abstract

Background: The causal relationship between sports participation, as physical activity, and subjective health is examined accounting for the London 2012 Olympic Games, which it was hoped would 'inspire a generation' by contributing to public health.Improvements to weaknesses in the literature are offered. First, stronger causal claims about the relationship between sports participation and health; second, the actual minutes and intensity of different measures of participation are used. Methods:The rolling monthly survey design of the annually reported Taking Part Survey (TPS) is used to create time series data. This is analysed using a time-series modelling strategy.Results: Increases in the level of subjective health requires accelerating sport participation, but no effect from the 2012 Olympics is revealed. Reductions in the level of health are brought about by increases in sports participation in early adulthood, although this gets reversed in middle age. However, a reduction in health re-emerges for older males compared to females. Conclusions:For the population as a whole sport can contribute to health, with diminishing impact, but impacts vary across the life course and genders. Policy accounting for these variations is necessary. Policy aspirations that London 2012 would produce health benefits from increased sports participation are misplaced.

Exploring the interrelationship between sport, health and social outcomes in the UK: implications for health policy

“…Framed by economic theory, in which the outcome of behaviour is SWB (7), we postulate that sport will directly contribute to this outcome, but also to Health and Social Capital, and these variables will also have a mediating influence on SWB. Moreover, as established in the literature we also postulate that these outcomes will, in turn, also influence participation in sport (19) . Our research questions are, thus, exploratory in seeking to identify to what extent the relationship between sport and SWB is influenced by effects on health and social capital as well, and to what extent these relationships are simultaneous.…”

“…There is no exploration of the collective interrelationships between these sets of variables. It is important to recognise that this is often the case because studies focus on isolating causal effects between sport and the specific outcomes of health (9, 14), social capital (24) or SWB (19,20) as it is recognised that sport and these outcomes might be simultaneously determined. For example, from a health economics perspective, sport can be seen as an investment in health, and potentially a flow of activity facilitated by an accumulated stock of health (19,29).…”

‘No man is an island entire of itself.’ The hidden effect of peers on physical activity

“…The first is that, as identified in Section 3, peer effects are intrinsically manifestations of simultaneous behaviour and consequently instrumental variable analysis needs to be undertaken in order to remove the bias that this causes in estimating the effect of the peer effects variable. The second, and related, issue is that the above models are likely to nest implicit dynamic behaviour caused by the 'habit persistence' of participation in physical activities like sport (see for example, Downward and Riordan, 2007;Downward et al, 2015). This would be manifested in the presence of serial correlation of the residuals.…”

“…Rejection of the null hypothesis of no first order serial correlation (F(1, 5799) = 54.255; Prob > F= 0.000) reveals the presence of dynamic behaviour (Wooldridge, 2002;Drukker, 2003). Results are presented for the whole sample and also disaggregated for males and females as it is well-known, for example, that participation in activities like sports are gendered (Downward et al, 2015).…”

Exploring spillovers between government quality and individual health production through sport and physical activity

“…One way to reduce obesity is to participate in sport and physical activity which can be considered an investment in health production (Downward, Dawson, & Mills, 2015;Mullahy & Robert, 2010). In addition to reducing obesity, participation in sport and physical activity has further health benefits including a reduced incidence of high blood pressure, heart disease, asthma, and arthritis (e.g., Blair, 2009;Humphreys, McLeod, & Ruseski, 2014;Warburton et al, 2006).…”