Destroying the myth that performance-sport promotes public health

Hardwicke, J ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1152-0920, Bottomley, D, Coates, E, Hindley, D ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2279-9530, Rzepka, M and Matthews, C ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8561-2863, 2025. Destroying the myth that performance-sport promotes public health. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics. ISSN 1940-6940

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Abstract

Within this essay, we seek to critically deconstruct and destroy a rather pervasive myth—that funding and developing performance-sport promotes public health in meaningful and straightforward ways. While there is plenty of well-considered research that informs our position, much of which we discuss, it appears that this myth endures within popular communications and policy discourses about ‘sport’. We therefore address this problem not by adding more evidence in the form of new research, but rather by considering what myths are, how they are central to the ways that some people understand and navigate the social world, and how they can lead to misguided actions. Although myths are commonly understood as unserious, fanciful and perhaps harmless, we outline how they can and do cause clear harm. We show some of the ways that myths about performance-sport are connected to the misuse of personal and public resources in relation to promoting health and policy implementation. Various critical scholars have arrived at similar conclusions to us, our development to that work comes in clearly marking out the problem and critiquing mythical ways of (un)thinking about sport. This offers a powerful heuristic which scholars, sports leaders, policymakers and others can align with as they work towards bringing about a different, more equitable and physically active future.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics
Creators:	Hardwicke, J., Bottomley, D., Coates, E., Hindley, D., Rzepka, M. and Matthews, C.
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
Date:	18 June 2025
ISSN:	1940-6940
Identifiers:	Number Type 2451672 Other 10.1080/19406940.2025.2529199 DOI
Rights:	This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Science and Technology
Record created by:	Jeremy Silvester
Date Added:	12 Jun 2025 09:04
Last Modified:	13 Jan 2026 18:12
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/53730

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