The Contested Terrain of Sport and Well-Being: Health and Wellness or Wellbeing Washing?

Abstract

Wellbeing has firmly established itself within contemporary practice, politics and policy. Indeed, the cultural, commercial, and terrestrial landscape of the concept is staggering and manifests within popular discourse and across global organisations and institutions, national governments, workplaces, and consumer lifestyle products and services. Notably, the field of sport, exercise, and physical activity has been identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations, and the OECD as a key sector with the potential to contribute to people’s wellbeing. This should not be surprising given that there is a large body of literature espousing the benefits of regular physical activity (in myriad forms) as part of a healthy lifestyle. However, there are increasing concerns that wellbeing’s global ubiquity may be leading to a range of unintended consequences and/or unscrupulous practices within both international organisations and nation-states. This largely conceptual essay focuses on the concept and process of wellbeing washing by (1) tracing the historical roots and evolution of wellbeing; (2) exploring its reconceptualization within the framework of neoliberalism; (3) offering a preliminary outline of the concept of wellbeing washing; and (4) briefly describing how wellbeing washing is manifesting within the context of sport in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Overall, this analysis explores wellbeing as a contested terrain of interests marked by a range of complexities and contradictions.