Lorena Lozano-Sufrategui

In September 2018, Alba Palacios made history as the first transgender woman officially registered to play in the Spanish women’s football league. Her entry into the game has been received largely ...

This study aims to explore the lived experiences of intergenerational leisure amongst a sample of Spanish grandparents, and the impact these may have on their perceived health and wellbeing. Theoretically, this study is framed within Stryker and Burke’s symbolic interaction theory and Erikson's theory of psychosocial development. Data collection included semi structured phone interviews with 19 grandparents. Thematic analysis elicited four key themes, related to grandparents’ lived experiences of intergenerational leisure. These included: (1) Generative activities; (2) Identities in intergenerational leisure; (3) Hindrances to role performance; and (4) Health impact of grandparents’ self-meanings. We conclude that participants’ self-evaluations of the impact their generative actions had on their grandchildren, together with the high salience of their role, influenced their self-concept and led to positive outcomes. These included improvements in their health and wellbeing, such as feeling calm and relaxed, feeling loved and looked after, and helped them to have a future-oriented outlook by giving them a greater sense of liveliness, hope and purpose in life. We provide some recommendations for future research and practice, such as the need of interventions that provide older adults with opportunities to interact with younger generations during leisure time.

Sport and exercise students will form the next generation of sport, exercise and health practitioners tasked with supporting disabled people to be physically active. Yet, little is known about what these students imagine about physical activity and disability. This focus is important as university can be a narratively rich environment that offers pedagogical opportunities to understand and disrupt dangerous narratives around disability and amplify alternative narratives. The aim of this study was to explore sport and exercise students’ narrative imagination of physical activity and disability through the novel method of story completion. Ninety Uk-based participants wrote a story in response to one of four story stems. Following a rigorously applied holistic-form structural analysis, three principal narratives were identified across all stories: 1) incapability narrative; 2) supercrip narrative; and 3) social justice in sport narrative. Novel narrative insights highlighted the problematic dominant representations of disabled people in incapability and supercrip stories underpinned by an ableist ideology and emphasised the need to amplify counter-narrative resources to promote acts of social justice. This original empirical knowledge has the capacity to influence university education and expand the narrative resources available to sport and exercise students to talk about disability and improve interactions with disabled people. This article also makes an important methodological contribution by applying an innovative narrative analytical technique to story completion data, as well as advancing practical considerations and challenges guiding story completion design and implementation.

Aim: This study aims to understand the behaviour changes men who attended a weight loss programme engage in during weight maintenance. Understanding the needs of men in the context of weight loss maintenance is important, as they are underrepresented in this body of literature. Method: Given its focus on personal experience, this study adopted a qualitative design. Semi-structured interviews supported by participant-generated photo-elicitation techniques to explore the behavioural changes 12 men engaged in 6 months after attending a men-only weight loss programme. Data analysis was undertaken through thematic analysis and Gleeson’s polytextual thematic analysis. Results: This study suggests that the key behaviours men engaged in to maintain weight loss can be classified into four categories: (1) ‘Small’ changes, (2) Informed decisions, (3) Monitoring of behaviours, and (4) Dealing with ambivalence. Conclusion: This study makes an original contribution to knowledge and can have important implications for practice in the area of men’s health, particularly with regard to the long-term impact of weight loss interventions.

The aim of this paper is to explore how female players of Basque pelota (pelotaris) construct their gender identity in a traditionally masculine sport. The theory of performativity is used to understand how females negotiate, resist or challenge the dominant gender discourse. Data were collected through 10 in-depth interviews with players. Through inductive analysis we found that the sociocultural context surrounding Basque pelota reinforces the binary system of gender embodiment, which includes hegemonic masculinities and idealised femininities. However, our findings also suggest that whilst some players adhere to this dominant discourse, others actively resist and transgress it through the embodiment of alternative identities. In doing this, these players create new and inclusive identities, therefore escaping a simplistic binary and embracing a multiplicity of gender identities. As a result, they can become active agents in the promotion of equity in sport.

Health Promotion International (2019) doi: 10.1093/heapro/daz097 .

The implementation of effective community-based health interventions within Spanish football clubs has the potential to positively influence the public health agenda and enable the healthcare system in Spain to be more successful and sustainable. This paper aims to explore the involvement of Spanish football clubs in health promotion activities, their potential for future involvement and what that would require. A mixed methods explanatory sequential design, with a purposive sample of La Liga clubs. Data collection included online questionnaires and phone interviews. Quantitative methods enabled us to describe the number and types of programmes the clubs are currently involved in. Qualitative data was useful to further unpick the processes followed by the clubs in planning and developing health promotion programmes, while identifying any determinants to change. Seventeen clubs completed questionnaires and 11 participated in interviews. Clubs generally support inclusive programmes that target disadvantaged groups. Health-related programmes focus on healthy eating, physical activity and blood donation. Thematic analysis of interviews with 11 representatives of La Liga clubs resulted in three-key themes. These related to: (i) Diversity of programmes; (ii) (Lack of) evidence-based approaches to intervention design and evaluation and (iii) Contrasting views about a club’s role in health promotion interventions. Spanish football clubs have potential to reach into communities that are currently underserved. However, there is limited infrastructure and understanding within the clubs to do this. Nevertheless, there is huge opportunity for organizations with public health responsibility in Spain to implement translational approaches within football-based settings.

Current approaches to obesity recommend weight control strategies that focus on energy-restricted diets and increased physical activity. However, these approaches meet with (at best) limited success despite being central to evidence, policy and practice. There is apparently more to weight loss, including potentially important psychosocial processes that affect behaviour change. Using an ethnographic and narrative approach, this study explored the psychosocial processes experienced by those attending a men-only, community-based weight management intervention. Methods of data collection included semi-structured interviews and participant observation, and thematic analysis was used to analyse and interpret the data collected. Analysis and interpretation suggests that personally meaningful psychosocial processes in participants’ accounts comprised three themes, including (1) ‘Everybody is in the same boat’: A shared safe place; (2) ‘It’s a nudge in the right direction’: Broadening horizons and a push forward; and (3) ‘You need to want to change’: Taking control. This paper concludes with some implications for future practice and research in the area of weight loss and health promotion.

In capitalist societies, where discipline and control are dominant concepts, prisons are a warning tool about the consequences of non-conformity. In this context, prisoners are exposed to a type of power that is used as a corrective technique to transform them into docile and useful citizens. However, such power is not static and inmates can create various strategies of resistance. The aim of this research is to understand how physical activity and sport are used by incarcerated women to confront social control in Spanish prisons. Based on 16 interviews with former female inmates, we found that engaging in physical activity and sports helped participants to cope with their sentences. These activities were also used as tools to confront and negotiate the patriarchal punitive power often found in prisons, meaning that participants were not put down by it. Participants’ abilities to minimally destabilise the prison’s order also empowered them to regain some autonomy and identity. Through participating in physical activity and sports, incarcerated women created spaces of freedom and frictions within a limiting prohibitive prison environment.

Weighty: NICE's Not-So-Nice Words