IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v60y2005i10p2295-2306.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mothers reframing physical activity: family oriented politicism, transgression and contested expertise in Australia

Author

Listed:
  • Lewis, Belinda
  • Ridge, Damien

Abstract

Mothers of young children are a population sub-group with one of the lowest levels of physical activity. This paper presents the findings from a qualitative study with 40 Australian mothers of children under school age. The research aimed to understand the tensions, dilemmas and trade-offs which women experience around physical activity within the contexts of their everyday lives as mothers of young children. The analysis shows that, in contrast to health promotion messages which frame physical activity as a positive and healthy behaviour, mothers of young children perceive activity as being both enhancing and threatening to their health and social relationships. Restrictive stereotypes of the 'good' mother make it difficult for many women to prioritise their own physical activity needs over their childrearing and domestic responsibilities. Nevertheless, women's involvement in physical activity is often underpinned by the maternal 'ethic of care' as something which can help them cope better with the challenges of being a mother and contribute to the wellbeing of the family. This article takes as its departure point the notion that the maternal 'ethic of care' creates previously unrecognised opportunities in relation to physical activity. For many mothers, physical activity can also be a way of challenging hegemonic discourses and extending what it means to be a good mother in contemporary society. Although largely overlooked by contemporary health promotion, it is women's family-oriented politicism and resistance to dominant meanings about motherhood, health and the 'ideal' body which create alternative possibilities for their participation and enjoyment of physical activity during early motherhood.

Suggested Citation

  • Lewis, Belinda & Ridge, Damien, 2005. "Mothers reframing physical activity: family oriented politicism, transgression and contested expertise in Australia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(10), pages 2295-2306, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:60:y:2005:i:10:p:2295-2306
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(04)00517-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yuval Paldi & Daniel S. Moran & Orna Baron-Epel & Shiran Bord & Elisheva Benartzi & Riki Tesler, 2021. "Social Capital as a Mediator in the Link between Women’s Participation in Team Sports and Health-Related Outcomes," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(17), pages 1-15, September.
    2. Yuval Paldi & Daniel S. Moran & Orna Baron-Epel & Shiran Bord & Riki Tesler, 2021. "Ethnic Disparities in Social Capital and Health among Jewish and Arab Participants in the Israeli Mamanet Cachibol League," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(1), pages 1-14, January.
    3. Agata Korcz & Jana Krzysztoszek & Marlena Łopatka & Mateusz Ludwiczak & Paulina Górska & Michał Bronikowski, 2020. "The Role of Family Time Together in Meeting the Recommendation for Physical Activity among Primary School Children," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(11), pages 1-14, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:60:y:2005:i:10:p:2295-2306. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.