Sport participation as a tool for promoting wellness for youth
Depending on one’s race and socioeconomic status, there can be vastly different life trajectories and health outcomes. Alexander Gamble, a graduate student at the Rutgers Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, and team examined how participation in sports for youth of color can impact Wellness in many of the 8 Dimensions showing the power of sports for health disparity prevention and social support. The Wellness Model is a framework proposed in this piece to illustrate how sport participation can counterbalance challenges that youth of color experience. Causes of ongoing stress such as racism and stigma can often lead to negative outcomes. Sports participation positively counterbalances these effects and can serve as a protective factor. There is also substantial literature demonstrating the benefits of physical activity like sports on improving one’s mental health, however there is room for growth in terms of rigor of program measurement and quality assessment. Gamble, and team call for future studies to consider integrating the Wellness Model as a theoretical framework to view the holistic benefits of sports for youth of color.
The full article can be accessed here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/casp.2884
Gamble, A., Economou, P., & Swarbrick, M. (2024). Sport participation as a tool for promoting wellness for youth of colour. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 34(5), e2884.