Sports clubs provide physical activity, social interaction, and enjoyment for people of all ages and can play an important role in public health (Geidne 2022).  However, while they are recognised as positive settings, sports clubs have also been recognised for their negative impacts, for example - sport participants are more likely to use alcohol and steroids than non-sport participants (Holman et al., 1997; Moore & Werch, 2005; Musselman & Rutledge, 2010, Geidne 2022).

While other statistics show, children’s participation in sports exposes them to high levels of food and beverage promotion” (Exploring the relationship between Big Food Corporations and Professional Sports Clubs: A Scoping Review).

There is growing recognition and work on supporting clubs to be healthier environments for players, coaches, and volunteers. But there is still mahi to be done in this space.

For this reason, Healthy Families Ōtautahi has been working alongside clubs in Waitaha to gather an understanding of what a healthy sports club environment means to clubs. The exploration and discovery phase of this project has been led by systems Innovator, Maria Smolar and will contribute to the bigger picture in terms of the work Sport Canterbury is carrying out alongside local clubs.

Maria’s involvement with this project came off the back of Former Healthy Families Ōtautahi Systems Innovator, George Lajpold’s mahi with rugby clubs on the role they play in hauora. As well as a discussion between herself, The Christchurch Alcohol Action Plan (CAAP) Coordinator, and The Health Promotion Agency (HPA), now part of Te Whatu Ora.

“The initial conversation was around alcohol, alcohol sponsorship, and wellbeing which has led to a collaborative design project to explore what a healthy/health-promoting sports club looks like for clubs.”

“This also includes what healthy sponsorship looks like without unhealthy commodity funding,” adds Smolar. 

The project is still underway and as part of the process, the organisations agreed to set up a discovery phase to understand what this means for clubs and for a second phase to be established based on the insights of the discovery phase.

“This phase is about gathering an understanding from different people involved in clubs on what a healthy club means to them, what healthy sponsorship might look like without unhealthy commodity funding, and the challenges and opportunities in achieving this,” says Smolar.

So far, 24 in-depth interviews have been conducted with a range of clubs, RSO’s and with others involved in clubs. 

The plan is to take the insights gathered and work with others internally and externally on what that means and where future work in this space will best fit.

“This is an ongoing project that we hope will gain momentum as it moves through the phases, but the goal at this point in time is to encourage clubs to reflect on their current practices and processes and think about what a healthy sports club means to them.” says Smolar. 

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Article added: Monday 01 August 2022