PERCEIVED HEALTH : “A BENEFIT” OR “A COST” OF SPORT PARTICIPATION?

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to examine a relationship between perceived health and sport participation with objectives as follows: (a) to examine how athletes perceive their health and understand its importance for sport and life; (b) to examine what strategies athletes use to enhance their health and under what conditions they put their health at risk in sport; (c) to analyse social influences on athletes related to sport and health and (d) to analyse a position of health among athletes’ perceived “benefits” and “costs” of athletic career in its relation to satisfaction with sport participation. The perceived health and sport participation working model (Stambulova, Johnson, Lindwall & Hinic, 2004) was used as the theoretical framework for this study. Thirty six competitive athletes – representatives of different sports - were interviewed using a structured interview guide with both qualitative and quantitative questions. Inductive and deductive analyses were used to treat the qualitative data and to develop category profiles. SPSS was used to treat the quantitative data (descriptive statistics). The results show that the athletes’ attitude to their health is double sided. A majority of the athletes value health as important for life but at the same time 69% of them put their health at risk in their athletic career (e.g, practicing or competing when ill or injured). A majority of the athletes also use self enhancing strategies (e.g., injury and overtraining prevention), but are at the same time draining their health related resources. Health was the second highest perceived benefit of sport participation, but it was also the second highest perceived cost. Social influences are also contradictive as the athletes significant others express positive opinions about the link between sport and health, but they also often “push” athletes to put their health under risk in sport. The results are discussed in relation to the corresponding literature and the perceived health and sport participation working model.