African Journal for Physical Health Education, Recreation and Dance - Volume 12, Issue 3, September 2006

In 2002, the Secretary-General of the United Nations Organization (UNO), Mr Kofi Anan, convened an Inter-Agency Task Force on sport for development and peace. The main aim of the task force was to review activities concerning sport in the UN system (UNO, 2003). The task force was also set-up to design strategies to promote more systematic and coherent use of sport in facilitating development and peace activities, especially at the community level and to generate support for such activities among governments and sport-related organizations.

Physical Education (PE) and School Sport (SS) in South Africa demonstrate extremes and inequities. Contrast is visible in all aspects of South African life, but most significantly in education. White and urban schools are relatively problem free, whereas black and rural schools have been adversely affected by the past governments' apartheid and separate development policies (Walter, 1994). Some schools have well developed facilities, while the majority have next to nothing. PE teachers are qualified in some cases and grossly unqualified in many others. PE programmes in white schools and urban cities offer a wide and balanced variety of activities while in others opportunities are limited to a few movement activities. As a school subject PE has been neglected, misunderstood, seen as being of little importance and regarded as inferior when compared to other subjects in the school curriculum (Walter, 1994). In order to find out the status of PE and school sport among school children aged 6-15-years, we administered the Sport in Education (SpinEd) project questionnaire (Bailey, 2005) to 897 school children in two provinces and contrasting geographical locations in South Africa. The questionnaire focused on five main Themes / domains that refer to specific aspects of children's development and understanding through PE and school sport, i.e. physical development, lifestyle development, affective development, social development and cognitive development. The results showed some disparity in the perception and understanding of PE and SS among the respondents' age group and geographical location, specifically with regard to 'feeling' about PE and SS, 'values' (importance) of PE and SS, 'comparison' of PE and SS with other school subjects and 'self-rating' on PE and SS. Responses to each of the five themes / domains varied across age group, and geographical location, indicating the fact that children need to achieve the five most important developmental competencies - foundational (knowledge), practical skills (psychomotor), reflexive (affective), physical (growth) and social skills for holistic development and for PE and SS to adequately address the needs of post-independent South Africa.

Service quality in health and recreational services represents a growing, yet currently understudied area in the service industry. Consequently, this study proposes an integrated model of health and fitness service quality and examines the relationship among service quality, satisfaction and loyalty. A thirty-nine item health and fitness service quality scale (HAFSQ) developed earlier by the authors was used to measure service quality along eight service quality variables namely, personnel, programming and medical, convenience and information dissemination, functionality and layout, ambience and accessibility, facility attraction, safety and support and membership. The study is based on data collected from 251 commercial health and fitness patrons. The results indicate that service quality positively influences satisfaction which in turn influences loyalty. However, no direct relationship between service quality and loyalty was established. Service quality, however, influences loyalty via satisfaction, that is, satisfaction serves as a mediating variable between service quality and loyalty. Managerial implications and directions for future research are highlighted.

This study presents a survey of the existing status of the social, recreational and housing habits related to the environmental health of residents living within the Selebi-Phikwe Ni-Cu mine area, Botswana. Primary data of residents obtained through the administration of questionnaire and structured interviews was processed with the aid of the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). The generated data depicted that the consumption of cigarettes, dagga, coffee, coke and alcohol were in general higher in sites close to where mining and smelting activities are carried out. Percentages of drinking and smoking of respondents living within the study areas close to the mining area were also higher than at the other parts of the study area. A wide range of physical exercises and hobbies are performed by the residents which do have a positive contributory effect to their health. However, low essential household facilities coupled with high densities per household for the areas close to the mine could be the enhancing factors of some of the negative health effects resulting from mining activities in Selebi-Phikwe.

Safety is a very important aspect in scuba diving, as not complying with safety regulations can lead to serious injury or even death. In this article the researchers focused on the discursive construction of safety during training in scuba diving. The research position fell within the field of discursive psychology. The researcher audiotaped the discourse that was constructed between a scuba diving instructor and three trainees during scuba diving training. This discourse was analyzed using discursive analysis. It was found that the scuba diving instructor mainly used the discursive strategies of "contrast" and "repetition" to construct the notion of safety. This article only focuses on the aspect of "contrast".

Burnout, a response to chronic emotional stress, could be influenced by parameters such as healthy lifestyle and physical activity, considered to be important factors in maintaining optimal health and wellness. The objective of this study was to determine the influence of leisure time physical activity participation on the levels of burnout, stress, happiness and quality of life among a sample of Indians in the Potchefstroom Indian community. Indian respondents in Potchefstroom were assessed by a self-report questionnaire for physical activity, burnout, stress, happiness and quality of life. The respondents comprised 101 South African Indian men (n=47) and women (n=54), randomly selected from a semi-urbanized Indian community. The level of burnout, happiness and quality of life were determined by using the Pines et al. Burnout-scale (1981) and the Affectometer 2 questionnaire of Kammann and Flett (1983). Stress symptoms were analyzed by using the 25-item stress symptoms questionnaire (Dickman, 1988). The type, intensity, frequency and duration of participation in physical activity were determined by the Physical Activity Index (PAI) as suggested by Sharkey (1997). One-way analysis of variance was computed for the purpose of this test. The Tukey HSD post-hoc test was used to determine which groups differed statistically from each other (p<0.05) (Thomas & Nelson, 1996). Stress symptom scores indicated no statistically significant differences between participants with a low physical activity index versus those with a high physical activity index. Women reported a higher level of stress symptoms with values between 15 and 25 than men with values between 0 and 14. The average levels of burnout were categorized as moderate for both men and women with values of 2.9-3.7. On happiness and quality of life, respondents in the various physical activity groups (men and women) could be categorized in the low category (&lt; 17), suggestive of low levels of psychological well-being, irrespective of the level of physical activity participation.

Physical inactivity is one of the leading causes of the major non-communicable diseases, which contribute substantially to the global burden of diseases, death and disability. The burden of mortality, morbidity and disability attributable to non-communicable diseases is currently greatest and is continually growing in the developing countries. Most declines in physical activity (PA) occur during the transition period when a person goes from high school to College or University. The objectives of this study were to identify perceived benefits of and barriers to PA and determine whether previous participation in PA does have an influence on these perceptions. A cross-sectional and descriptive study with quantitative design was conducted. Five hundred (500) tertiary institution students were randomly sampled from purposively selected departments and classes at each of the five government educational tertiary institutions in Rwanda. A pre-coded self-administered questionnaire with a small number of open-ended questions was administered to the students. A response rate of 425 (85%) was obtained. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data, by means of SAS version 8 software. Frequencies and percentages for mean score values with standard deviations for each perception variable were descriptively obtained. False Discovery Rate (FDR) at 5% for multiple test adjustment and Spearman's correlation (r) tests were used to identify the significant influence of previous participation on perceptions. More than 70% students were not participating in PA at tertiary level. Psychological benefits of PA were some of the most important perceived benefits cited by the students. Most of the important barriers cited concerned equipment and time constraints to exercising. Associations were found between previous participation and the current perceptions of PA. The findings of this study demonstrate that previous participation can influence perceptions of PA among the students. Physical activity promotion programmes should consider the role of these factors which should be emphasised from childhood.

The purpose of this study was to measure the relationship between socio-economic status (SES) and educational achievements (EA) of rural South African children. The data come from a sample of 238 children (118 boys and 120 girls) from the ongoing Ellisras Longitudinal Study. A questionnaire was used to gather information on six SES measures: Availability of TV and radio at home; type of dwelling; educational level of the father; number of people sharing a bedroom; cooking mode used; and household income. EA was measured using the Educational Achievement Tests. In this sample, with a very low average SES, no strong relationships were found between SES and EA. The general absence of significant relationships between SES and EA may be due to difficulties in accurately and adequately measuring SES and EA, and the little variations in SES. The 'type of dwelling' and 'cooking mode' however, was positively associated with EA. Based on this result, improvement of housing and cooking facilities may lead to improvement in the educational achievement of children in low SES rural communities.

Literature indicates that children who experience motor problems may have a lower self-concept (Skinner & Piek, 2001) as well as higher anxiety (Rose et al., 1999) than children without movement problems. The aim of this study was to determine whether Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) has an influence on 7-9 year old children's self-concept and anxiety and to determine whether the extent of their motor problems will influence their self-concept and anxiety differently. Teachers identified 201 potential DCD candidates. The Movement Assessment Battery for Children (Henderson & Sugden, 1992) identified 66 with DCD (41 boys and 25 girls). Self-concept and anxiety were determined by the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale (Child Form) (Fitts & Warren, 1996) and Child Anxiety Scale (Gillis, 1980) respectively. A correlation matrix as well as independent t-tests were conducted in analyzing the results. Correlational analysis indicates relationships between motor proficiency, anxiety and self-concept. Children with moderate and severe DCD have normal anxiety but a non-significantly lower self-concept score than what is indicated as the normal range. Children with severe and moderate DCD do not, however, differ statistically significantly from one another with regard to anxiety and self-concept. Girls with severe DCD have a moderately significantly lower moral self-concept (p=0.09) than girls with moderate DCD. The results show that the self-concept of children between 7 and 9 years of age are negatively influenced by DCD. However, the severity of their motor problems does not influence their self-concept and anxiety differently, although a tendency of this was found among the girls, especially with regard to their moral self-concept.

A total of 1, 260 students who were purposively drawn participated in the study. Thirty-nine variables were investigated under body basics, skinfolds, girths, lengths and breadths / lengths. The results revealed that the students from high socio-economic background exhibited bigger body girths and were taller on the average when compared with those from the low socio-economic background. Nevertheless, none of the students from either backgrounds demonstrated BMI for obesity or overweight, though those from low socio-economic background had greater body mass indexes. The skinfolds of both groups were however, comparable since none of the eight variables measured differed between the groups. It was therefore recommended that efforts should be made by all concerned to bridge the gap existing between the rich and the poor and to include anthropometric profile assessment in the training and fitness promotion package of Nigerian students who are the country's future leaders.

In the last decade, Nigerian teams have excelled at a number of international sports competitions, notably the All-African Games, Olympic and Commonwealth Games. Given the role of effective sponsorship and marketing in sports development, this study was designed to find out the extent to which corporate sponsorship impacts on the promotion of sport in the country. Consequently, a preliminary assessment of the effectiveness of sports sponsorship in south-west Nigeria as perceived by stakeholders in several sectors of the economy was undertaken. Participants were 370 respondents who comprised workers of some private organizations, officials of sports supporters club, support service personnel and sport administrators in Lagos metropolis, Nigeria. Information for the study was collected using structured questionnaires and data were analyzed descriptively. It was concluded that sports sponsorship has contributed positively to the development of sport in Nigeria, but more incentives should be provided to corporate organizations in order to promote their sponsorship of sporting events in the country.