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2005 George Butler Lecture Response:
Public Health and Leisure Research: Personal and Professional Reflections
Karla A. Henderson, North Carolina State University
I am pleased to be a part of today’s discourse about public health priorities and leisure research. From my perspective, this relationship is a “no-brainer” but I clearly bring bias to the discussion. I am delighted that our profession has been invited to be a part of the transdisciplinary approaches to addressing health issues. I contend that the focus of almost all leisure research has been to improve the quality of individual and community life, which subsumes physical and mental health. Research undertaken to understand leisure behavior and to help recreation managers make participation safer and more satisfying has had the implicit goal of encouraging healthy living. Although we have not positioned ourselves as part of the health care service system, our profession is all about health. Parks, recreation, and leisure researchers have a place waiting at the public health table as evidenced by this Leisure Research Symposium Opening Session and the Active Living Research Workshop, which preceded our meeting. We must embrace this opportunity.
I come to this discussion with personal and professional opinions to share related to Dr. Buchner’s comments and my perspectives about our field. First, most of my comments relate to physical health. I don’t discount mental health but I believe that evidence clearly links the two. Physical health is strongly associated with mental health and that relationship has been explicated. Further, physical health is really on the forefront of people’s minds considering the growing social issues associated with obesity and inactivity for adults and children in our society. I also believe that physical health is a measurable area that lends itself to evidence-based research.
Second, I bring a bias about how important physical health is personally. Health is important to everyone. As my research has shown (e.g., Henderson & Ainsworth, 2003) as well as the work of many others (e.g., Marcus, Rakowski, & Rossi, 1992), attitudes about the importance of being physically active and the associated behaviors are not always congruent. The women I’ve interviewed almost unanimously talked about the value of being physically active but a much smaller percentage were actually involved in even moderate exercise or walking. Except for a few years in my early 20’s, I have always been physically active. I began running while I was in graduate school, and I’ve never stopped. Two years ago I logged enough miles to have run the circumference of the earth. Several years ago I wrote a story that appeared in a local literary magazine where I described an experience running a 10K race. As I gained upon and eventually passed a “twenty something woman” in the last mile of the race, she remarked, “Way to go. I hope I can run like you when I get to be your age.” My initial feeling of insult in reference to my “old” age later turned into a sense of joy. I wrote in the story:
I, too, hope that young woman can run like me when she gets old. I hope she runs for more than a quarter of a century as I have done. I wish for her to find friendships like I’ve found in the communities where I’ve lived and run. I want her and other young women to find intimacy in sharing life’s joys and frustrations with friends and new acquaintances while on a run. I hope she learns the discipline and tenacity necessary to accomplish a running goal like finishing a marathon or just running when it’s raining. I expect that she will see hundreds of beautiful sunrises, sunsets, and cloud formations if she runs until she’s as old as me.
I hope she experiences a runners’ high every now and again, and finds a daily run as an antidote for stress. I want her to see running as a celebration whether done on the 4th of July or the 28th of January. She’ll get to anticipate eating extra ice cream knowing that is guilt-free after a daily run. She can look forward to a longer and healthier life because she’s a runner. Yeah, I do hope that someday she runs like me, and that she will inspire other young women to take pride in their powerful bodies and in movement that connects one’s soul to the earth.
Clearly I have a bias toward physical activity.
Finally, I credit many people in related fields as well as our own for influencing my thinking about the topic of physical activity. Three of my colleagues are sharing with you today and I am well aware of Laura’s plea for being part of the health care system (Payne, 2004), Yoshi’s work on stress (Iwasaki & Schneider, 2003) and Kathy’s commitment to NRPA partnerships through “Step up to Health” (NRPA, 2005). Having laid out my opinions about physical health, my personal preoccupation with running, and the interrelatedness of the work we are doing about health, I will react to five points Dr. Buchner made.
1. The second goal of Healthy People 2010 is to eliminate health disparities. That statement refers to the US but I find irony that many so-called developed countries are facing issues of obesity and overweight while elsewhere people are starving to death. I realize this discrepancy doesn’t have much to do with today’s topic of transdisciplinary research, but I think the situation is worth pondering.
2. Another point that I find interesting is why our field has not been more engaged in multidisciplinary or transdisciplinary research. This question probably raises a larger issue beyond the area of health. Our young professional field has spent energy distancing itself from others. We grew from physical education and forestry roots. Our field is more than sport or trees and in efforts to show a unique body of knowledge and an identifiable profession, we have drawn boundaries. These demarcations may have been necessary, but we are now invited into a bigger world. From the perspective of contributing to health promotion, a fusion is essential. Yet, some of these unions may challenge where our profession fits in academic or community service units. This discussion transcends the points important to consider today but they raise important questions about the future of our field.
3. As I noted earlier, I believe that leisure research is about health. Wankel stated in 1994 that studying leisure in a comprehensive way is impossible without addressing health and well being. The difference today is, as Dr. Buchner suggested, that the issues of public health cannot be examined only by public health researchers. Whether examining the micro, meso, or macro environments, our field has something to offer. We may still have to prove that we have the rigor in our research that makes us worthy contributors. As someone who has had the opportunity to review for other journals such as American Journal of Preventive Medicine, American Journal of Public Health, and Journal of Physical Activity and Health, I can attest that our research can be as rigorous as any other field.
4. Dr. Buchner suggested from the work of Geof Godbey that the immediate opportunity to increase physical activity in this country is to increase leisure-time physical activity. I believe that focus can occur in two ways. One aspect is the environmental approach that suggests public parks and recreation, for example, are a prime community resource for encouraging active living. Second, more is yet to be learned about the social psychological aspects of leisure, enjoyment, and time use. These approaches need to be integrated in our field as well as within the broader transdisciplinary context. Leisure research hasn’t always had a lot to do with park and recreation practice, but perhaps this marriage is needed within our own field. Evidence-based interventions require a unity of practice and research. We cannot assume leisure and/or parks and recreation are inherently good without evidence based work.
5. Speeding the “transdisciplinary learning curve” is necessary. We started this week. The process of working together as researchers and with practitioners in communities will have challenges. This transdisciplinary research requires team members to share roles and systematically cross discipline boundaries. The communication style will require continuous give and take on a regular, planned basis. As professionals we will need to teach, learn, and work together. Some problems in working together relate to different mind sets or paradigms. Sometimes leisure researchers find it difficult to measure constructs adequately and we often use different terminology to describe what we study (e.g., constraints verses barriers). The most important aspect is for parks, recreation, and leisure professionals to articulate what we have to bring to the transdisciplinary team and for professionals in other fields to recognize the value of what we bring. These issues will never be addressed unless we jump into them headfirst with all the facets of our field such as health, economics, tourism, and nature-based recreation.
I appreciate the opportunity to spend time with you today. I look forward to many more opportunities to continue this dialogue in the future.
References
Henderson, K.A., & Ainsworth, B.E. (2003). A synthesis of perceptions about physical activity among older African American and American Indian women. American Journal of Public Health, 93(2), 313-317.
Iwasaki, Y., & Schneider, I. E. (2003). Leisure, stress, and coping: An evolving area of inquiry. Leisure Sciences, 25, 107-114.
Marcus, B.H., Rakowski, W., & Rossi, J.S. (1992). Assessing the motivational readiness and decision making for exercise. Health Psychology, 11, 257-261.
National Recreation and Park Association. (2005). Step up to health...It starts in parks. Retrieved on April 27, 2005 from http://www.nrpa.org.
Payne, L.L. (2002). Progress and challenges in repositioning leisure as a core component of health. Journal of Park and Recreation Administration, 20(4), 1-11.
Wankel, L.M. (1994). Health and leisure: Inextricably linked. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance, 65(4), 28-31.