Problematizing “Play-for-Health” Discourses Through Children’s Photo-Elicited Narratives

Abstract

There are growing concerns in many industrialized Western societies about declining opportunities for children to play, and fears that this will have adverse health consequences for them. Informed by anti-obesity efforts, public health institutions have recently begun to advance active forms of play as a way of improving children’s physical health; however, promoting play for physical health might reshape meanings of play for children. We conducted photography and interview sessions with 25 Canadian children aged 7 to 11 years to examine their representations of play. Our findings suggest that for children, (a) play is an end in itself, (b) play involves but is more than active play, (c) there is ambivalence about scheduled play, and (d) risk is considered a pleasurable component of play. These findings point to a dissonance between children’s play promoted for physical health and the meaning of play for children as emotionally contingent, intrinsically motivated, and purposeless.