Supporting lifestyle risk reduction: promoting men’s health through professional football

Abstract

For men, unhealthy lifestyle behaviours including physical inactivity, a poor diet, smoking and excess alcohol represent major, modifiable causes of non-communicable disease worldwide. Innovative approaches that seek to overcome the barriers that men experience when attempting to deploy more self-care to manage these behaviours are required. This study assessed the outcomes of a 12-week men’s health promotion intervention delivered in and by professional football clubs. Data comprised self-reports from 1667 men aged 18–75 years from 16 English Premier League and Championship football clubs. A multinomial logistic regression model estimated the probability of self-reporting a number of baseline lifestyle risk factors compared to a reference group with none. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests assessed differences in lifestyle risk profiles. Over 85% of participants presented with multiple risk factors. Men aged ≥35 years were least likely to present all four risk factors (OR: 0.45, 95% CI: 0.23–0.88), whereas unemployed men (OR: 3.64, 95% CI: 1.78–7.51) and those with no social support network (OR: 5.10, 95% CI: 2.44–10.50) were most likely to self-report all four lifestyle risks. The prevalence of risk factors was significantly reduced post-intervention (z = −7.488, p < 0.001, r = −0.13), indicating a positive effect, and potential public health significance. Findings show that men can respond positively to behaviourally-focused interventions delivered in familiar and local settings, like professional football clubs.