Abstract
PurposeInvolvement of youth in electronic sports is increasing and outdoor sports are decreasing day by day. It not only affects their health but also leads them towards noncommunicable diseases. Risk of noncommunicable diseases is associated with physical inactivity and affects physical and mental health. It results in different personal and social implications. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of outdoor sports and risks of electronic sports for health.Design/methodology/approachThe data for study is collected from 450 university students using purposive sampling technique. In order to measure outdoor sports, a four items instrument developed by Simon and Smoll (1974) is used. For electronic sports, instrument is adopted from Lemmens et al. (2009) and for health of youth, instrument by Bailis et al. (2003) is used. After reliability and validity check, structural equation modeling is used to analyze data.FindingsThe results reveal that perceived outdoor sports have significant positive impact on health, whereas electronic sports have negative impact on youth health that lead them to certain noncommunicable diseases. There is need to emphasize and encourage youth for outdoor sports and avoid indulging in esports that may lead to addiction.Practical implicationsElectronic games have various risks for the development of syndromes among younger generation. Awareness should be provided that physical activities are essential for healthy life and how risky be the esports for their health. This study may be helpful for government as well to reduce dependency of youth on technological devices and provide necessary recreation facilities to engage in. This research study validates that outdoor sports have significantly positive impact on health of youth and it reduces health related problems and destructive behaviors among youth.Originality/valueInvolvement of youth in electronic sports is increasing and outdoor sports are decreasing day by day. It not only affects their health, but also leads them toward non-communicable diseases. The present study examines the impact of esports and physical sports on youth health.
Highlights
The progress, prosperity and future of any nation significantly depend on their youth (Morgan and Parker, 2017)
The demographics results (Table 1) show that the percentage of male who participates in this survey is 55% (246) while there are 204 females who show their interest to participate in games
The results showed that 58% respondents are from of 21–26 and remaining 42% are from 26 to 30 age groups
Summary
The progress, prosperity and future of any nation significantly depend on their youth (Morgan and Parker, 2017). According to Asrar-ul-Haq (2015), 60% of population in Pakistan lies under the age of 25 which shows its significance in the economic and social development of the country. Sports activities are closely associated to physical and mental health (Tsunoda et al, 2015; Vedøy, 2020; Wang et al, 2020). © Saima Anwar, Sadaf Noor and Muhammad Asrar-ul-Haq. Published in Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Sciences. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http:// creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
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