ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to deepen the understanding of children’s ideas about sport, exercise, and physical activity, using insights from the sociology of childhood. The source material consists of 62 focus group interviews with 346 girls and boys in upper secondary schools, and the voices of children who are still active in sports or who have never been active are both heard. The results indicate that the social construction of childhood is changing from an idea of the ‘sporting child’, in which specific fostering aspects connected to the sports for all model has dominated, to an idea of childhood as a life phase in which healthy lifestyle choices must be learnt, performed, and consumed – ‘the fit child’. The individualized responsibility for health can be connected to a neoliberal discourse that challenges the Nordic welfare model in several areas.
