The Best of the Best Discourse on Health: Poetic Insights on How Professional Sport Socializes a Family of Men Into Hegemonic Masculinity and Physical Inactivity

Abstract

This health issue is serious. How are men socialized to believe or view health in ways that are detrimental to their health? Are they able to become aware of the choices they have in how they view health? Family, school, community, and media play major roles in directing males to behave and believe certain things about physically healthy lifestyles. It is our belief that these influential forces set and enforce certain gender roles and expectations that a male needs to meet to be accepted. The researchers understand a physically healthy lifestyle as a way of being physically active, eating a nutritionally balanced diet, and engaging appropriately with others and the environment. The researchers propose that this "maleness" socialization limits males in how they make healthy lifestyle choices and how they understand the notion of being physically healthy.The media's portrayal of men within a hegemonic system is a pervasive influence on peoples' understanding of a healthy lifestyle. To deconstruct A ccording to the Toronto Men's Health Network (TMHN), 1 There is an ongoing, increasing and mostly silent crisis in the health and well-being of men and boys. Due to a lack of awareness, poor health education, and culturally conditioned behavior patterns in their work and personal lives, the health and well-being of men and boys has been steadily deteriorating. In Canada and in several other countries, men and boys experience significantly higher rates of addiction, violence, crime, accident and premature death in comparison to their female counterparts. As well, men show significantly higher rates of death from cancer, heart disease, homicide and suicide. (TMHN, 2005) This study examines how 4 men from the same family, representing different generations, construct health from their perceptions of professional athletes. Many men are socialized and participate in sport discourses that promote certain truths about being a man that often have detrimental effects to their health. The capacity of research to inform men's construction of health is limited. In an attempt to engage male participants within the research process and cause a form of catalytic validity, transcripts from interviews with the men were analyzed, and thematic findings were represented in a poetic form and shared with the participants for discussion and refinement. The findings revealed how the male participants reiterated messages that the media promotes, such as the importance of physical and mental strength for a man. More significantly, the men became aware that they assumed a narrow definition of health portrayed by professional athletics that perpetuated a hegemonic masculinity. Reflections on changes in the men's lifestyle choices after engaging in the research process are offered in the conclusion.

Can athletes be tough yet compassionate to themselves? Practical implications for NCAA mental health best practice no. 4

“…The conceptualizations of MT and SC in sport seem contradictory. MT is hypothesized as a key attribute in constant performance and consistent thriving despite stress levels and it is usually portrayed through a "machismo" mentality [48,[60][61][62]. Conversely, SC's operationalization entails self-kindness and arresting self-objectification and social comparison when facing setbacks [63].…”

Connecting masculinities and physical activity among senior South Asian Canadian immigrant men

“…In focusing on physical activity in the context of Western men's health, exercise has been espoused as the one healthpromoting activity that men engage with more often than women (Lee and Owens 2002, Sabo 2005, Bird and Rieker 2008. However, this association often links sport and masculine ideals of competitiveness and the strength and physical prowess embodied by elite male athletes (Drummond 2002, Madill andHopper 2007). As a consequence, men are often assumed to have special relationships to sport, and rather than problematizing that connection, it is commonly exploited for the purposes of engaging men in health promotion (Robertson 2003).…”

Maternal Navigational Strategies: Examining Mother-Daughter Dyads in Adolescent Families of Color

“…During this process, profiles were further condensed into poems that crystallized these issues. The use of poetry in the transcription, analysis, and presentation of qualitative research is growing (Glesne, 1997;Koelsch & Knudson, 2009;Madill & Hopper, 2007). For the current study poetic form was used in the analysis phase, similar to the use of "I" poems in The Listening Guide technique (Gilligan, Spencer, Weinberg, & Bertsch, 2006) as it allowed the voices of the participants to emerge from the narrative.…”