If your target group's sport isn't soccer, most of what is written below still  applies to other sports

Football


Football has a health downsite to it
as well as being a way of promoting wellbeing. Click here to see how the
food, drink and betting industries
used the 2010 World Cup

Football has 7 health uses
1) Playing football as exercise
Playing soccer has now become popular with girls and women as well as males. It is also loved by many different BME groups within the UK

2) Playing football to promote values
In the late Nineteenth century the influence of Muscular Christianity and the moral value of sport took hold in British public schools. Christian Socialists later exported this to the 'slums' as a community development tool. They saw how football could be  used to promote certain values, such as team work, competition etc. Team sports are still

sometimes encouraged for these reasons today. (Other forms of physical activity may encourage different values e.g. dancing maybe more of a social activity. Alternatively promoting gym use could make people relatively more isolated.)  The value of using particular sports people as deliberate role models is also another way of promoting values. 

3) Football as a way to build communities
The work of Robert Putnam suggests that sport clubs and local leagues may help maintain a local sense of community. This in itself is good for health according to  Richard G Wilkinson in 'Unhealthy societies: the afflictions of inequality'

4) Football as a place to reach people
Football stadiums are good places for advertisements aimed at certain target groups. However, the bigger clubs are now so expensive that the groups most in need of health information may not be able to go. It may be worth thinking about working with local weekend leagues to reach certain target groups.

5) Football as a way of linking health to people's own interests
Football can be used as a topic to help to engage people on health topics. This has two aspects to it. One can be described as superficial and the other, explored more in 6) below, as more intrinsic to the game. Neither is any better than the other. A 'superficial' approach is where football is used to 'sugar the pill'. This is a variation on the commercial world using footballers to promote their products. So for example, a member of a local team is invited to a health fair. The hope is that people will come to see him and then stay for the rest of the event. Another approach under this heading would be the use of football as a metaphor in advertising e.g. 'Moving the goal posts'. (For an example of how a comic strip character could be developed to engage young men around health issues in a 'superficial' way click here.)

6) Bringing out health related issues within football
As discussed in 2), football is not morally neutral. The professional game has certain topics, values and contradictions embedded within it.  You can therefore use it to engage people in a debate about a range of health matters. These topics and values include:
* Issues round lifestyle associated with player and fan behaviour such as alcohol, drugs, violence, stress, gender roles and class
* Issues round health education skills that often derive from the role of the manager such as decision-making, communication, dealing with feelings and promoting others' self-esteem
* Issues round the wider determinants of health. Examples here include helping others, poverty, racism, the role of government and the media. These are all a reflection of the world that clubs operate in

Social market research will tell you what messages, skills etc your target group may want. It will also show you whether to link football into some of the other approaches on this website such as computer games and magazines. (To read a hypothetical example of how to use football in the workplace to promote emotional health and resilience or prevent stress click here. Alternatively click here for sample questions to a possible football and health discussion game.)

7) Using football to directly tackle the wider determinants of health
I originally thought that there were only six ways football could be used to improve health. However, in some circumstances, such as a World Cup tournament, it could also be used to try improve the infrastructure of an area and develop the local economy. This could potentially lead to long or short term health benefits, as well as possible negative side effects. A health impact assessment would obviously need to be carried out at the start to study this. Few policy makers will ever have this kind of global opportunity on their hands of course. Perhaps though the redevelopment of local professional or amateur stadiums may have a similar, if reduced, impact.

Others sports can also be used to promote health. To read about how to use the London Oympic and Paralympic Games to promote heath click here.

(For references click here and links click here.)

To read a much more full account of the topics covered on this page in the relevant chapter from my report on edutainment for health purposes click here
http://www.sexanddrugsandrockandhealth.com/userimages/NewPcsection6Football.pdf

To download the whole 180 page report on using popular culture to tackle health  inequalities click here
http://www.sexanddrugsandrockandhealth.com/userimages/newPCTotalDocument.pdf

To download the PDF software to be able to view these files click here
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html