The Article Within The Inside Spread
The notion of personal health can incorporate many diverse interpretations and perspectives, including those aspects which may be considered as ‘components’ of personal health care (e.g. ones’ eating habits, exercise patterns and the awareness - and potential avoidance - of risk behaviours such as smoking and drinking). Beyond such a component based understanding, there are wider considerations in what constitutes personal health - such as the extent to which we are able to exercise personal responsibility for our own health and, conversely, the factors considered as being beyond our control (e.g. genetic causes).
A further perspective concerns those areas of our everyday lives which may be less directly associated with personal health (e.g. than would be eating or exercise), but which may still have a significant impact – such as the nature and effects of our working and non-working (or leisure) activities. Indeed, it is evident that in the 21st the activities associated with work and leisure both represent a substantial aspect of everyday living and have a considerable impact on our physical and psychological well-being.
Leisure in particular has played an increasingly important role in contributing to personal health in recent times, much more so than was the case with our ancestors of just 150 years ago. Although it can be said that in primitive hunter-gatherer societies, time spent on leisure was greater than that spent on ‘work’, it is also the case that as the complexity of society increased (including complex agrarian as well as industrial societies) the extent of leisure or free time decreased. This began to change in just relatively recent times (e.g. due to the rise in trade union activity in 19th and 20th century securing shorter working hours for employees) until the concept of the ‘leisure society’ began to emerge in the 1980s.
Engagement with activities defined, by common consensus, as ‘leisure’ has been found to correlate positively with various health measures, such as improved blood pressure, decreased depression and lowered perceived stress. Moreover, this linkhas been found to be an international rather than a local or national phenomenon, with research from various countries (including UK, US and Australia) indicating that that leisure activities are significantly linked to psychological health. Indeed this has been so much so, that it has led to the development of new branches of leisure oriented employment, in the growth of leisure industries and the professionalization of leisure services.
The link between leisure pursuits and increased personal health has also been acknowledged by official governmental bodies, with offering quotations from both England’s Policy Action Group and also the Scottish Office to this effect (e.g. “leisure activities can help to increase the self-esteem of individuals, increase social interaction and improve health and fitness”).
What can be certain from the above is that the notion of leisure, and our engagement with leisure activities, has become integrally linked with the concept of personal health, and - judging from the specialised leisure journals underlining its scientific foundation, the inclusion of a ‘leisure section’ on every council website underlining its ‘official’ standing, and a plethora of popular magazines catering for its every aspect (ranging from physical pursuits to trainspotting) - leisure and personal health seem likely to remain intertwined indefinitely.
