Physical Education and the Quest for Relevance in the Age of Precarity: Lessons from the Weight Inclusive Thinking Project (WIT)

ABSTRACT

For the 31st Delphine Hanna Lecture, this paper draws parallels between Dr. Delphine Hanna’s approach to establishing physical education’s professional legitimacy in the late 1800s to the field’s current quest for social and cultural relevance. Drawing on the concept of precarity, the paper outlines society’s current challenges and argues that the physical education field remains disconnected from the lived experiences of young people. In the spirit of hope and purpose, the paper suggests physical education professionals can learn from the innovative and interdisciplinary path Dr. Hanna forged during her trailblazing career. As one potential example of what this approach may look like today, the author highlights the lesson learned from the Weight Inclusive Thinking (WIT) project – an interdisciplinary effort to promote body size diversity across physical activity settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Physical education
• cultural relevance
• precarity
• interdisciplinarity
• weight-inclusive

Acknowledgments

To Dr. Saemi Lee and Dr. Dawn Clifford, for their expertise and dedication to the design, implementation, and evaluation of WIT FITS.

To Dr. Dillon Landi, for his invaluable insights and multiple revisions of this manuscript.

To Dr. Tara Blackshear and Dr. Martha James-Hassan, for providing feedback on the lecture script and their unwavering encouragement.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).