Destroying the myth that performance-sport promotes public health

What the paper says

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.