New Terms, Broader Approaches: Recreation and the Social Ecology of Physical Activity

Beginning of article

Promoting the physical and emotional health of individuals in our communities has always been a goal of parks and recreation programs. Recent reports from the Surgeon General (US Department of Health and Human Services, 1996) have emphasized the need for efforts to promote physical health in a variety of dimensions. With the continuing focus on the benefits movement for programming and management, the outcomes of recreation for physical and emotional health has a great emphasis.

Although much has been done to promote healthy living by staff in parks and recreation departments, more can be done using new concepts regarding a focus on the social ecology of health promotion and quality of life issues. The physical activities advocated and facilitated by park and recreation departments require consideration within a new context, not only by sports and fitness programmers, but also by all individuals committed to the benefits and values associated with parks and recreation.

The purpose of this research update is to examine the concept of social ecology as it might be applied to health and physical activity issues, facilities, and programs in parks and recreation departments. Two aspects are important to consider including how social ecology might be used in a community to address health issues such as inactive citizens, and what partnerships parks and recreation departments can have in institutional, community, environmental, and policy interventions within a social ecological model. The theoretical concepts of social ecology will be discussed along with the specific programmatic and management strategies for practice that might be noted, limitations of the approach, and a brief discussion of how leisure researchers might broaden their research to examine concepts of social ecology.

New Terms

Ecology generally refers to the interrelations between organisms and their environments. Ecological concepts refer to people's transactions with their physical and sociocultural environments. Social ecology is derived from systems theory with people-environment transactions characterized by cultures of mutual influence. The general thesis of ecological models of behavior is that environments restrict the range of behaviors by promoting and sometimes demanding certain actions and by discouraging or prohibiting other behaviors. For example, if an individual does not feel sale walking in a park because of overgrown bushes all along a pathway, he or she will not go to that park. These ecological approaches can add explanatory value above that provided by interpersonal and interpersonal factors that influence people's involvement and participation.

Stokols (1992) …