Sport, health and the genesis of a physical activity policy in the Netherlands

Abstract

Sport and physical activity have become prominent tools in governmental health policy in the Netherlands. This paper focuses on developments in dominant understandings of sport and physical activity in relation to notions of health in the field of sport policy since the 1950s. We show that ‘sport is good for health’ arguments were emphasized and mitigated by different stakeholders with diverging purposes at different moments in time, to stimulate or legitimize interference of the national government in the field of sport. By studying changes in the power balances between the state, the private sport sector and other stakeholders, we explain how, gradually, public health became a, and at times the, major legitimization for this interference. Furthermore, we demonstrate how these developments coincided with a narrowing of the vision of sport, as frequency and intensity became more important than what was actually practised. In this process, sport became blurred with other terms like physical activity and recreation, and new interest groups entered the field of sport and health. However, these developments had real consequences for the sport sector. This paper clearly illustrates the unintended and complex outcomes of a policy process with interdependent power relations and interests. Over the past decades, health-related aims gained dominance in Dutch sport policy, but certainly not in a straightforward way.

Keywords:

• sport policy
• health legitimations
• definition of sport
• The Netherlands
• historical sociology

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport as a part of the 2011–2014 research programme The Netherlands a sporting nation? Ambitions and achievements of the Mulier Institute. We are grateful to Agnes Elling and the reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft.

Notes

1. Although this is a dominant understanding in current societies, it is not undisputed (e.g. Waddington 2000, Cheek 2008).

2. For a description of the organization of sport in the Netherlands and a review on general developments in Dutch national sport policy, see Waardenburg and van Bottenburg (2013).

3. In the CBS study, the authors assumed that ‘when in certain play activities also elements of competition and performance were present, these activities could be called “sport”, even when it was not a physical performance. (…) In the end, it was up to the persons questioned to determine if they practised a certain branch of sport as a sport or not’ (CBS 1964, p. 5).

4. More precisely, Manders and Kropman defined a sport practitioner as someone who practised sport at least 10 times a year, outside holidays and with a specific intention, like competition or performance (Manders and Kropman 1974).

5. More specifically, the government formulated four accents for sport policy: the first two were explicitly related to health and the other two were not so much related to the content of sport policy, but focused on its organization (WVC 1983, p. 7).