Tess Kay

Background Public health guidance and associated interventions seek to bring about change in diet and physical activity behaviours to improve life expectancy and healthy life expectancy in the population. Low socioeconomic status (SES) groups suffer from reduced life/healthy life expectancy compared with the population as a whole. This in-depth qua...

Socioeconomic status (SES) is known to influence strongly both life expectancy and healthy life expectancy. Whilst there are multiple factors with complex interactions that provide the explanation for this observation, differences in the uptake of physical activity between high and low SES groups play a role. This in-depth qualitative study set out...

This article reports on an investigation of the effects of ‘visual arts’-based programmes on subjective well-being (SWB) outcomes for adults with mental health conditions. In a systematic review, electronic databases were searched for articles published from January 2007 to April 2017. Grey literature completed from January 2014 to April 2017 was a...

Background: Sit-stand desk interventions have the potential to reduce workplace sedentary behaviour and improve employee health. However, the extent of sit-stand desk use varies between employees and in different organisational contexts. Framed by organisational cultural theory and product design theory, this study examined employees' lived experi...

Purpose Prolonged workplace sitting can harm employee health. Sit-stand desks are a potential workplace health initiative that might reduce and break up the time office-based employees spend sitting in the workplace. However, little is known about the feasibility and acceptability of providing sit-stand desks. The paper aims to discuss this issue....

The promotion of physical activity for older people is dominated by biomedically informed polices emphasizing the prescription of exercise as medicine and a universal approach to the promotion of active aging in later life. Yet, more recent research recognizes that being physically active in later life is complex and contested, shaped by the inters...

Objectives An effectiveness and cost-effectiveness analyses of two-staged community sports interventions; taster sports sessions compared with portfolio of community sport sessions. Design Quasi-experiment using an interrupted time series design. Setting Community sports projects delivered by eight lead partners in London Borough of Hounslow, UK....

Background: Community sport can potentially help to increase levels of physical activity and improve public health. Sport coaches have a role to play in designing and implementing community sport for health. To equip the community sport workforce with the knowledge and skills to design and deliver sport and empower inactive participants to take pa...

Objective To review and assess effectiveness of sport and dance participation on subjective well-being outcomes among healthy young people aged 15–24 years. Design Systematic review. Methods We searched for studies published in any language between January 2006 and September 2016 on PsychINFO, Ovid MEDLINE, Eric, Web of Science (Arts and Humaniti...

Aims: The role of arts and music in supporting subjective wellbeing (SWB) is increasingly recognised. Robust evidence is needed to support policy and practice. This article reports on the first of four reviews of Culture, Sport and Wellbeing (CSW) commissioned by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded What Works Centre for Wellbein...

In October 2014, the International Safeguards for Children in Sport were launched. These Safeguards were developed, implemented, and evaluated based on a pilot process which took place over the preceding 2 years. Throughout this piloting phase, a range of qualitative techniques were employed to capture the experiences of people within 32 of the org...

This paper addresses the absence of social science perspectives in physical activity policy guidance. Physical activity is a universal health focus, a priority for global, regional and national agencies acting on public health (e.g. the World Health Organisation; WHO Regional Office for Europe; Public Health England). Current UK guidance about bein...

Aims: There is a growing recognition of the ways in which culture and sport can contribute to wellbeing. A strong evidence base is needed to support innovative service development and a 3-year research programme is being undertaken to capture best evidence of wellbeing impacts and outcomes of cultural and sporting activities in order to inform UK...

A lack of physical activity and excessive sitting can contribute to poor physical health and wellbeing. The high percentage of the UK adult population in employment, and the prolonged sitting associated with desk-based office-work, make these workplaces an appropriate setting for interventions to reduce sedentary behaviour and increase physical act...

Introduction Sport is being promoted to raise population levels of physical activity for health. National sport participation policy focuses on complex community provision tailored to diverse local users. Few quality research studies exist that examine the role of community sport interventions in raising physical activity levels and no research to...

Tackling social exclusion should be a central aim of any civilised social policy. In this meticulously revised and updated new edition of his groundbreaking study, Sport and Social Exclusion, Mike Collins has assembled a vast array of new evidence from a range of global sources to demonstrate how the effects of social exclusion are as evident in sp...

This chapter examines the contributions that leisure can make to family life. It is essentially concerned with how leisure contributes to positive experiences and social relationships within the family unit and its implications for individual and collective well-being. ‘Family’ has risen to prominence as a focus for concern as patterns of diversity...

Employment empowers women to challenge gender inequity in leisure, with the practical and psychological gains being potentially greatest for women in highstatus jobs. These benefits may now be countered by trends towards longer working hours. This article investigates the lifestyles of full-time employed women in dual- earner households with one or...

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to examine the experiences of indigenous participants in Global North led sport for development programmes. The chapter considers whether the experiences of indigenous participants reflect the neo-colonialist claims levied at such initiatives. Design/methodology/approach – The chapter draws on findings from...

The restructuring of work challenges existing concepts of leisure and is amongst the most prominent social and cultural changes occurring in industrialised societies. In the short run its effects have been most evident in the large increases in unemployment, and it has been widely suggested that ‘leisure’ may offer a part-solution to the problems o...

Recent years have seen the extension of the Olympic legacy concept to include the use of sport in international development. As in the wider policy area of international development, the external partners that fund sport programmes require in-country accountability for the use of their investment and this has led to monitoring and evaluation (M+E)...

The role of family in influencing sports behaviour is widely recognized. This article extends this body of knowledge by examining how the family influences young people’s responses to sport programmes operating in international development contexts. Recognizing the central role of the family as a social institution, the article highlights the cultu...

The genesis for this special edition occurred at the 8th Biennial Australian and New Zealand Association of Leisure Studies conference hosted by Victoria University, Melbourne in 2008. A special theme, organized by Tess Kay, Kevin Lyons and John Jenkins encouraged eight presenters to examine masculinities and leisure under the title of 'Unlocking m...

The use of sport in pursuit of international development goals is broadening, with widespread policy support for sports-based programmes that promote social, educational and health goals. Academic assessment has however been more critical, posing searching questions about the paucity of evidence that justifies the use of sport in these roles. Recen...

This paper analyses the capacity of youth sport volunteering to contribute to the development of social capital. Following a review of the emergence of social capital as a key theme in UK sport policy, the paper focuses on the ability of a structured sports volunteering programme to equip young people with skills for effective volunteering, and pro...

Sport is increasingly being recognised for the contribution it can make to the Millennium Development Goals and the response to the HIV / AIDS pandemic. This recognition of the value of sport led to the instigation of a number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Zambia, and in other parts of world, that deliver combined programmes of sport...

At a time when ‘fathers’, ‘fatherhood’ and ‘fathering’ are highly contested concepts in westernised societies, leisure is significant as a primary site for men to respond to the increased expectation that fathers will be actively involved with their children. Sport, with its lengthy tradition of paternal participation with children, is a particular...

An evaluation of sportscotland’s investment in Active Schools began in 2004. There was debate about the nature of the evaluation. It was clear that process evaluation was essential – how effective are the various processes, structures, staff, support, training and infrastructure in ensuring that Active Schools is delivered effectively? Although com...

This article examines the significance of family influence on young women from minority (Muslim) communities who have participated in a combined sport and education programme designed to encourage access to further and higher education. The study explores how family expectations about the roles of young women affect the participants' responses to t...

In this second volume of “Informed Leisure Practices: Cases as Conduits between Theory and Practice” ten more case studies are presented that document a diversity of contexts where research has been used to guide decision-making. Although unintended, there is a clear theme that emerges from the case studies in this volume. Each of the cases present...

This paper considers fathers and fatherhood as an ‘absent presence’ in leisure studies and argues for the need for and value of incorporating this subject matter within the field. The paper examines the underplaying of fathers and fatherhood in leisure studies, referring particularly to the leisure‐related literatures pertaining to leisure and gend...

This article examines the extent to which the growing attention being paid at EU and national level to issues related to work–life balance is reflected in families' lived experience. It identifies the demands facing families in balancing paid work with other activities, the strategies they adopt to meet them, and the role played by policy intervent...

A number of authors have recently called for reconsideration of the way in which gender and the family are investigated within leisure studies. This paper proposes that future analyses should include more explicit recognition of the ideological and practical influence of social policy on contemporary gender relations. The paper suggests that social...

This paper examines the central role played by the family in the development of children’s sports talent, with particular emphasis on the practical ways in which families support children’s excellence in sport. The paper reviews research on the impact that families have on young people’s sports careers, then draws on a recent empirical study to exa...

The everyday language of sports administration in Britain implies that sports policy is something which is made at the formulation stage and subsequently translated into practice through a process of implementation. Divergence between policy and practice is regarded as failure, and often viewed as the product of weaknesses in the processes for impl...

This paper reviews the interrelationship of work and leisure in British women's lives. It focuses in particular on the practical and ideological significance of changes in women's patterns of labour market involvement. While women's gross employment levels have risen substantially over the last three decades, the scale and pattern of female employm...

Data from a survey of 366 adults suggest that reported constraints do not always prevent participation in leisure activities. Many people were participating in the activities that they described as constrained, and Ss were conscious of experiencing constraints even when these could be partly overcome. In extreme cases, constraints were reported tha...

This paper reports on analysis of national sports participation data that focuses on the relationship between household structure and adult participation rates in sport. The research has been undertaken on behalf of Sport England, the lead national sports agency in England, to inform the development of future policy to increase sports participation...