ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the way children’s play is being drawn on to promote physical activity, and is becoming a new anti-obesity tool. We highlight the growing concern over childhood obesity, discuss the way leisure and play are becoming new targets of physical activity interventions through campaigns promoting a new form of play – “active play”. We discuss how the promotion of active play may be redefining the way play is understood and experienced. We suggest that what makes public health action on, and interest in, play so pertinent for investigation is also what differentiates it from other disciplinary accounts of play (i.e., psychology, education): that as a governmental institution, public health extends its reach to both science and society, and it is thus distinct in its role of regulating social practices as part of its health mandate. We illustrate how children’s play has become a health practice, an instrument to help fill a public health agenda regarding childhood, and argue that understanding the underlying values and assumptions that shape public health interventions on children’s play is critical. The chapter ends with children’s accounts of playing as a contrast to the public health perspective on play.
