Pleasure or Health SIR Main_FOR IP.pdf (816.43 kB)
Is it pleasure or health from leisure that we benefit from most? An analysis of well-being alternatives and implications for policy
Version 2 2020-11-26, 13:49
Version 1 2015-03-18, 16:34
journal contribution
posted on 2020-11-26, 13:49 authored by Paul DownwardPaul Downward, Peter DawsonInternational policy now constantly advocates a need for populations to engage in more physical activity to promote health and to reduce society’s health care costs. Such policy has developed guidelines on recommended levels and intensity of physical activity and implicitly equates health with well-being. It is assumed that individual, and hence social welfare will be enhanced if the activity guidelines are met. This paper challenges that claim and raises questions for public policy priorities. Using an instrumental variable analysis to value the well-being from active leisure, it is shown that the well-being experienced from active leisure that is not of a recommended intensity to generate health benefits, perhaps due to its social, recreational or fun purpose, has a higher value of well-being than active leisure that does meet the guidelines. This suggests rethinking the motivation and foundation of existing policy and perhaps a realignment of priorities towards activity that has a greater contribution to social welfare through its intrinsic fun and possibly social interaction.
History
School
- Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences
Published in
Social Indicators ResearchVolume
126Pages
443–465Citation
DOWNWARD, P. and DAWSON, P., 2015. Is it pleasure or health from leisure that we benefit from most? An analysis of well-being alternatives and implications for policy. Social Indicators Research, 126 (1), pp 443-465.Publisher
© Springer Science+Business MediaVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Acceptance date
2015-01-24Publication date
2015-02-05Copyright date
2016Notes
The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-0887-8ISSN
0303-8300eISSN
1573-0921Publisher version
Language
- en