Have adults lost their sense of play? An observational study of the social dynamics of physical (in)activity in German and Hawaiian leisure settings

The spread of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) is increasing worldwide. In its new NCD report the World Health Organization (WHO) [1] states that by 2030 an average of 60 million people will die of lifestyle related diseases (including obesity, Type II Diabetes, and several cardiovascular illnesses). NCDs are caused by a complex range of individual, environmental, and commercial determinants [2–4]. The latest WHO report [1] states that on average 20 million NCD related deaths could be prevented by changes in lifestyle factors, and in particular, by increases in physical activity [5]. Understanding and targeting the reasons for inactivity is therefore an important factor in dealing with NCDs.

Apart from poor physical health, there are many socio-cultural barriers to physical activity which are predominantly related to modern lifestyles. These include lack of time, lack of opportunities, and lack of money for sports and leisure activities [6–9]. Others have also described how body dissatisfaction [6], and the stigma associated with being overweight or obese [10, 11] may prevent individuals from feeling able to engage in physical activity. Finally, a small amount of research suggests that dominant discourses about physical activity being a ‘counter’ for food consumption, may have shifted the ways in which individuals perceive, and engage in physical activity [12].

Furthermore, research has highlighted several factors influencing sedentary behaviour. Owen et al. [13] name - among others – age, socio-economic status, and psychological-behavioural factors as facilitators of and barriers to sedentary behaviour [13]. Importantly, Owen and colleagues also argue that especially environmental determinants such as “behaviour settings” [13] may play an important role. In a recent review, Gardner and colleagues [14] identify the social environment as one important factor for interventions in order to reduce sedentary behaviour.

In this regard, researchers have also studied how social networks may either encourage physical activity, or sedentary behaviour [15]. Some researchers have suggested that those who have low levels of physical activity have a much stronger influence on the physical activity behaviours of peers, as compared to those who are more physically active. This research shows that individuals imitate the behaviours of their ‘least fit’, rather than their ‘most fit’ friends [16]. While this and the aforementioned study have provided important insights about the social barriers of physical activity, much less is known about how social dynamics influence physical activity in smaller social groups. This includes how group behaviours relating to physical activity are impacted by cultural values and norms within different environments.

Socio-cultural factors play an important role in body type preference and body presentation [17–19]. From a symbolic interactionist perspective, cultural representations form individuals’ perceptions of how individual behaviour and appearance in a certain social contexts should be [20, 21]. Culture offers guidelines for typical situations: which social roles have to be played by whom and when, which sort of behaviour is allowed and how decisions are made [22]. The socially accepted body appearance and activity are therefore socially created and symbolized in stereotypical body shapes and somatic practices. In Germany, as has been similarly reported in many other western countries, obese bodies are perceived as both unattractive and unhealthy, while normal weight and athletic bodies are perceived as both healthy and the socially expected and desired norm [23, 24]. However, in other countries, the cultural norms around body weight are markedly different. In regions like the Pacific Islands, adolescents and parents desire a range of average-sized bodies that meet their culturally defined view of health [25], even though they do not desire obese bodies [25, 26].

The phenomenon that people follow cultural guidelines although they could in principal behave differently can be explained by the mechanisms of collective behaviour. Individuals have the tendency to bond with others who are similar to them [27]. In this regard, culture is a construct that has a very strong bonding force, offering culturally characteristic behavioural rules, beliefs and values, thus facilitating communication and relationship formation [22]. Sharing the same cultural beliefs can be seen as a process of building up ‘homophilic’ relationships, i.e. associating with similar others [16]. In this regard, the transfer of cultural values and norms to individual behaviour happens on the level of interaction, particularly within groups. Tajfel and Turner [28] define a social group as “a collection of individuals who perceive themselves to be members of the same social category, share some emotional involvement in this common definition of themselves, and achieve some degree of social consensus about the evaluation of their group and of their membership in it“[28]. The process of passing on norms, values, attitudes, and beliefs in groups can be regarded as a phenomenon of ‘social contagion’ whereby behaviour spreads between individuals in the form of imitations of actions, stimulated by another [29]. Several studies have provided proof for this imitative behaviour between individuals [27, 30, 31]. Social network research therefore shows that “affect, attitudes, beliefs and behaviour can indeed spread through populations as if they were somehow infectious” [29].

This study aimed to investigate the impact of group based behaviours on the physical activity or inactivity of individuals in two settings in Germany and Hawai’i. In particular, we were interested in how social group dynamics influenced the physical activity of groups members; and specifically whether there were specific socio-cultural factors which contributed to physical (in)activity behaviours, and whether these differed between two different cultural settings. In doing so, we sought to address gaps in research literature relating to how group dynamics may impact on physical activity behaviours. This is important because it gives us a more nuanced understanding of the range of factors outside of individual level that may influence behaviours, and thus may be used to develop interventions aimed to increase physical activity particularly in sedentary groups.

Before discussing the results, it is important to highlight some limitations associated with this study. First, the observers in Hawai’i were German and may not have culturally appropriately interpreted the behaviours of a predominantly Polynesian population. To overcome this author (HB) was from Hawai’i and provided the team with cultural advice during the study. Second, this study takes a snapshot of activities during their time at the pools. As we did not talk to any of the individuals we observed, we cannot make any assumptions about their physical activity behaviours outside of the observational settings and the observation period. Since we did not talk to visitors, we can also not make any assumptions about the intended purpose or motivation for attending the pool or the pond. Yet, a possible explanation for some of our observed behaviours could be the motivation to visit the site. For example, if a family only intends to socialise at the pond rather than to go swimming, corresponding behaviour can be expected. Third, in order to remain unnoticed by the observed subjects, the observers often had to write down their observational notes outside of the observation areas. In these cases, the observations had to be memorized for a certain time before they could be documented. This holds particularly true for Hawai’i, where a significant part of the observations was done from the water. Although the observers where trained in memorizing their observations, observational errors therefore cannot be ruled out. Finally, visitors of the Champagne Pond had to either drive by truck, walk for 200 metres over stony terrain, or swim into the Pond. Access was therefore more difficult than in Germany.

Based on our original research questions, the findings from this study raise three points for discussion. Firstly, group structures seem to play a very significant role regarding the activity of the group members. The social environment clearly shapes an individual’s behavioural output [36]. This holds also true for physical activity. Our data shows that among adults, group size influenced the physical activity behaviours of individuals within the group. We found that the larger a group was, the less physically active they tended to be. However, this was not the case for young adults and children. In large adult groups verbal communication also seemed to be usually livelier than in small groups. We thus assume that in large socializing groups physical activity disturbs this verbal communication and this results in sedentary behaviour. In order to limit the members to sitting and chatting and to maintain ‘physical communication discipline’, physical inactivity becomes a specific group norm. Against the background of Turner’s general assumptions that conformity with group norms plays a central role for holding a group together [37], physical inactivity functions as a group stabilizing element, despite all activity opportunities the settings offers. Conviviality in large groups was therefore both in Germany and Hawai’i characterised by sitting together in groups, relaxing and verbal communication in the form of frequent discussions, but not by physical activity. If groups of adults wanted to become active, they had to either ‘split off’ or come to the setting in small groups.

We also observed that physical activity level is moderated by so called ‘social (in)activity anchors’, such as domestication, obesity, and, in children, sitting parents. In this regard, mechanisms of social contagion are observable, such as the unconscious mimicry of the behaviour of significant others [30] or group dynamics driven by in-/out-group-constructions [28]. The phenomenon that even a small minority of a group can have a very powerful influence on the group’s behaviour might be explained by the findings of Xie et al. [38] who demonstrated that minorities can change the opinion of the whole group rapidly if they are larger than 10 % and, importantly, are very committed and dominant. We could observe – what Luszczynska et al. [31] and Dijksterhuis et al. [30] found in previous studies – that individuals imitate the behaviours of their peers automatically by unconscious mimicry in order to follow such unspoken rules. The data showed that this was especially the case for imitating physically inactive individuals. This observation is similar to other studies [16] that show that people tend to imitate the behaviour of their least fit, respectively less active friends. This may be a ‘courtesy effect’ whereby individual members of groups must not show their physical superiority but instead have to behave in such a way that the physically least fit member is not discriminated. This could particularly hold true for Hawai’i. The idea that group members must not be disadvantaged or embarrassed in public is an integral part of Ohana, a Hawaiian cultural ideal, that means family in a broader sense, including near friends. The idea of Ohana expects group members to build up strong relations with the others, to cooperate and help each other. In the context of these findings, an important first strategy to discourage inactivity anchors may be to make people aware of their activity hindering influence. This holds particularly true for inactive or overprotective parents who should be encouraged to play actively with their children instead of just watching them.

Secondly, there is a difference in the way adults and children are physically active. While adults had very structured forms of physical activity, children were more spontaneous and played and ‘celebrated’ physical activity in form of playful, boisterous group activity. A possible explanation might therefore be that children perceive physical activity as something that is separated from other activities by a specific, self-referential use of rules, spaces, and time structures [39]. The coupling of intrinsically verbal motivation with ongoing playful activity may lead to a change in experiencing the duration in the sense that these children and adolescents simply forget about time. This nullification of every-day life time structures is an important aspect of children’s games [40]. The observation that groups of children who play together do not seem to fatigue and are physically active longer goes in line with the findings by Scarapicchia and colleagues [41] who suggest that intrinsic motivation seems to spread and has a beneficial outcome on willingness to be physically active for longer. This observation might also explain why even large children groups were physically active in contrast to large adult groups.

Among adult groups, physical activity tended therefore to be an unsocial and functional activity. In other words, adults seem to have lost their sense of joyful, physically active play. Physical activity in adulthood appears to have rather functional purposes and is limited to shorter intense intervals, even in leisure settings. This goes in line with several recent studies which have suggested that adults (starting already at college age) increasingly perceive physical activity in general and especially exercise mostly as a lonely individual activity that is mainly driven by extrinsic motivations, such as health and attractiveness [42]. This represents a challenge for public health and health promotional specialists, particularly given that physical activity which is embedded in a social network is one of the most beneficial health factors [43]. Reframing the way in which adults think about physical activity – as a fun rather than function activity – may be a strategy for health promotion and social marketing initiatives which aim to stimulate activity both in adult and child groups [12].

A potential strategy could be to use fun and spontaneous activities for people of all ages and body-weights in order to engage them in more activity at leisure settings. An example could be ‘discovery paths’ in leisure settings which invite all visitors to actively explore the water, the beach, and the area together in groups by walking, climbing, and jumping. A further example would be game activities in groups such as ball games. Correspondingly, Kilpatrick and colleagues point out that motives for joyful play activities such as team sports “are more desirable than those for exercise and may facilitate improved adherence to physical activity” [42]. Our findings underscore the notion that in order to fully understand the complexity of causes which underlie physical inactivity one has to take an individual’s immediate social environment into account, in other words, the group with which an individual spends his or her free-time. Consequently, this study supports the view put forward by Fowler and Christakis [44] that due to “our embeddedness in social networks […] group level interventions may be more successful and more efficient than individual interventions” [44]. Specifically our findings concerning socially contagious physical activity between groups underscore this perspective. Socially contagious activity could be facilitated by providing stimuli. For instance, employees of an open air pool may encourage or ask one or two groups to start an activity as a stimulus for other groups.

Finally, although we expected that cultural settings would significantly influence physical activity behaviours in different groups across the two sites, we found only few marked differences in influencing social factors between Germany or Hawai’i. The most evident culture-related behavioural difference was the way in which individual obese people presented their body and occupied spaces. Yet, this did not directly impact their physical activity. One explanation for the lack of differences in the two cultural settings might be that we did not employ natives as observers in Hawai’i, and that the observers therefore lacked a complex understanding of certain socio-cultural mechanisms.

In order to tackle physical inactivity it may be vital to target the social environment of inactive people, i.e. the structures of the groups to which inactive individuals assign themselves. In this context, one of the main problems will be the fact that for adults fun and wellbeing appear to be not an essential part of their physical activity. Yet, these aspects should be important targets of public health strategies for the adult population. Therefore, developing strategies to reframe physical activity as ‘fun’ and to employ different types of activities based around play rather than structured and functional activities, may be one way to engage inactive individuals in physical activity in leisure settings. More observational studies investigating physical activity behaviour are needed. In order to increase the representativeness of the research, these studies could be conducted in other leisure settings such as recreational parks. Furthermore, we recommend that future research may investigate our themes more closely in experimental approaches.