TUESDAY, Dec. 23, 2008 (Health.com) — With more than a dozen college bowl games left to play this season and the NFL playoffs and Super Bowl on the horizon, sports fans may be focusing on couch surfing, beer, and nachos. But they might want to take a second look at the exercise habits of the sports teams they support.
A new survey suggests that die-hard sports fans weigh more, eat fattier foods, and have worse health habits in general than folks who don’t care as much about sports.
“The irony is seeing unhealthy people watch athletes at the peak of physical fitness,” says Daniel R. Sweeney, PhD, an assistant professor of sport management at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR), who conducted the survey with Donna Quimby, PhD, an associate professor of exercise science.
The researchers conducted an online survey of 14,000 people at UALR, including faculty, staff, and students. They divided 515 respondents into two groups—die-hard fans and those who were less devoted to sports teams. About 70% were students.
“Those that highly identify with a team are more emotionally involved and personally committed,” says Sweeney. “They usually spend more time, energy, and resources on rooting for their team.”
Despite sports fans’ religious-like devotion to their heroes on the field, the researchers found that they didn’t appear to emulate their health habits. In fact, devoted sports fans had a higher body mass index than non-sports fans, and were more likely to be overweight, with an average BMI of 27.4, compared with the nonfans’ more slender 25. (A BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight.)
They also ate junk food and fast food more often and drank more alcohol per sitting than their peers, according to the study, which was presented at the Arkansas Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance conference in November. About 26% of the sports fans consumed vegetables only one to three times a month, compared with 19% of non-sports fans; 21% of fans almost always ate high-fat food compared to only 13% of their peers.
“A good percentage said they never get any aerobic exercise,” adds Sweeney.
Next: Six healthy strategies for football fans
Comments (2)
I certainly wasn’t aware that your average sport’s fan was meant to be healthy. It’s not as if the owners of the stadiums go out of their way to begin with to make sure that the concession stands are filled with wholesome healthy foodstuffs to begin with. And less we forget that alcohol is all too readily available.
So now who’s kidding whom here when it comes to this all ?
tophatal …………..
They weren’t talking about stadiums, they were talking about sports fanatics at home in their living rooms, did you just read the same article that I did, tophatal? I agree with you on foods readily available everywhere, I think that there should be healthy choices for everyone everywhere, food servers, you may want to look into this for your establishment!!!