Thinking Beyond the Playing Field

Abstract

JOPERD • Volume 82 No. 6 • August 2011 I t has been said, “In the United States, obesity is the chief driver of health care costs in a country that can no longer afford health care” (Levine, 2010, p. S307). If that simple statement is not sufficiently thought provoking, consider this: based on the similarities that exist between the bubonic plague of the 14th century and the rampant obesity and related type 2 diabetes of today, the latter has been termed the “Black Death of the 21st century” (Matthews & Matthews, 2011, p. 2). The right sort of information dissemination would be a good start to effectively conquer such an imposing threat. In an editorial in the journal Public Health Nutrition, the editors noted that despite the “epidemic of obesity publications” there is a noticeable absence of intervention, policy, and capacity-building papers on the topic (Yngve, Tseng, Haapala, Hodge, & McNeill, 2011, p.1). This article intends to address the matter of intervention, the role of physical activity in intervention, and the issue of how to develop skills for these interventions, using the example of sport science and the behavior-change process of story. Let us begin by reviewing the current story of the obesity epidemic.