Sport for Pleasure, Fitness, Medals or Slenderness? Differential Effects of Sports Activities on Well-Being
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Sport for Pleasure, Fitness, Medals or Slenderness? Differential Effects of Sports Activities on Well-Being Malte Jetzke 1
& Michael
Mutz 2
Received: 8 February 2019 / Accepted: 2 July 2019/ # The International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS) and Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract Based on a theoretical framework informed by Self-Determination Theory, this paper argues that sports activities’ impact on subjective well-being is moderated by the goals and motivations associated with the sport. Precisely, we hypothesize that intrinsic sport motivations like enjoyment, sociality, and relaxation, may enhance subjective well-being, whereas the well-being effect of sport is less pronounced or even negative when sport is functionalized for extrinsic goals, e.g. to control weight or to compete for medals. These hypotheses are tested with a large-scale sample of university students in Germany. The results indicate that students who practice sport regularly and habitually have a higher satisfaction with life compared to non-athletes. Moreover, the type of motivation matters: Sport motivations that refer to intrinsic goals and states (enjoyment, relaxation, sociality, fitness) come along with a surplus of satisfaction with life, whereas motivations aiming at extrinsic goals (competition, weight control, distraction) contribute to a lesser degree to satisfaction with life. Hence, playful forms of exercise and sport, conceived as an end in itself, have more potential to enhance well-being compared to competitive and weight-related sports. Keywords Self determination theory . Life satisfaction . Leisure . Physical activity .
Subjective well-being
* Malte Jetzke [email protected] Michael Mutz [email protected]
1
Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Münster, Horstmarer Landweg 62a, D-48149 Münster, Germany
2
Institute of Sport Science, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, Kugelberg 62, D-35394 Gießen, Germany
M. Jetzke, M. Mutz
Introduction Sport is among the most popular leisure activities in Germany as well as in many other countries around the globe: According to representative German survey data, about 64% of adolescents (HBSC Study Group 2015) and about 43% of adults (Robert Koch Institute 2014) are engaged in leisure-time sporting activities for at least 2 h per week. Reviews have pointed to positive relationships between sporting activities and physical health (Abdullah et al. 2018; Heath et al. 2012; Lubans et al. 2016; Rebar et al. 2015) and therefore many governments engage in policies for sport and physical activity promotion (Breda et al. 2018). Furthermore, sports potential significance for psychosocial health and subjective well-being (SWB) has also received much scholarly attention. For instance, a relationship with SWB was found in the general population (Becchetti et al. 2008, 2012; Brown et al. 2015; Huang and Humphreys 2012; Lechner 2009) as well as in particular age groups like youths (Sigvartsen et al. 2016; Valois et al. 2004) and the elderl
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