Article Review of ‘Leisure and Active Lifestyles: Research Reflections’.

Leisure
Sciences. 27: 355-365, 2005
The article ‘Leisure and Active Lifestyles: Research Reflections’ is written by Karla A.
Henderson and M. Deborah Bialeschki, 2005 with the support of the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation Active Living Research for sponsorship of this special issue. The
purpose of this journal is to emphasize how leisure and recreation can be directly
related to active living. This special issue of Leisure Sciences also focus on the
environmental factors in the surrounding such as parks, open spaces and recreation
amenities that provide chances for active lifestyles. In this review, I would summarize
the article and offer comment about certain aspects of the article.
Henderson and Deborah reflected on the state of leisure and recreation research
relative to active lifestyles. Recreation researchers play important roles in cross-
disciplinary and social ecological methods to promote physical activity.
Henderson and Deborah highlighted the focus of leisure, parks and recreation
research that offers vital impact for active living. There are five factors on how leisure,
parks and recreation research contributes to active living, which are outdoor recreation,
community recreation areas and the built environment, time use, constraints to leisure
and physical activity and social interdependence. First of all, outdoor recreation
researches are often directly related to physiological and psychophysiological
dimensions of healthy lifestyles. Next, most of the research about the community areas
and recreation facilities such as trails was not related to physiological measures but
more focused on frequency of involvement. Furthermore, the spending of time on
physical activities will be easier if it was associated with a social routine or if the places
are easily access and convenient. In addition, the constraints to leisure and physical
activity inhibits people to participate in leisure activities. Lastly, social interdependence
is what the leisure researchers’ concern that encourage people to gather together and
be physically active.
Henderson and Deborah suggested three potential approaches on how leisure and
parks research can contribute to promote physical activity and active living. The first
way is leisure behaviour, which means to understand the reasons and methods of
people make time and activity choices. Secondly, roles of parks and recreation is vital
in enhancing the environments where people can be physically active. Last but not
least, collaborations and partnerships between various fields of study can help to
promote active living.
In conclusion, Henderson and Deborah presented convincing research on how leisure,
parks and recreation research are correlated with promoting active lifestyles. In today’s
world, people are concerned with a lot of health hazards such as cardiovascular
disease and obesity. Therefore, it is important for people to participate in leisure
activities during spare time to enhance physical health.