Background: The escalating costs of sports equipment, coupled with socioeconomic disparities, hinder children’s participation in physical activities. The Leisure Equipment Library (LEL), a unique service in Sweden, addresses this challenge by providing free equipment lending. This study investigated the significance of providing free lending of sports and recreational equipment for children’s and youth’s opportunities to engage in physical activities during leisure time. Method: Utilizing a cross-sectional survey during the summer-2022 period, the study is based on data from 427 LEL users aged 7 to 25 years. User characteristics (demography, socioeconomic status, physical activity profiles), equipment usage patterns and perceived significance are also analyzed. The findings are discussed using the concept of consumer-brand identification. Results: The results showed that LEL reaches a broad and diverse group of children and young people in terms of gender, age, socioeconomic status, and physical activity profile. The borrowed equipment, primarily used for play and recreation, serves as an essential resource for children and youths and, in particular, for those with low socioeconomic status. LEL is considered highly important by all user groups, with a majority emphasizing its significance in facilitating leisure activities. Conclusions: The study suggests LEL’s success lies in its accessibility and that users identify with the brand of LEL. Users perceive LEL as a service catering to various recreational needs rather than sports, fostering inclusivity. The localization of stores in various types of areas, combined with high-quality products, enable children and young people from different socioeconomic areas to use the service. LEL’s success hinges on maintaining a positive brand image and promoting a recreation-oriented identity. Opportunities exist to strengthen emotional bonds with users, enhance branding strategies, and position LEL as a valuable resource for inclusive recreational activities. In conclusion, this study highlights the potential of free lending services, such as LEL, to bridge socioeconomic gaps in the promotion of physical activity among children and young people.

Background Older adults are insufficiently physically active, despite its importance for healthy aging. To develop appropriate physical activity interventions, it is necessary to understand their physical activity. This study applies a theoretical perspective, the COM-B model, and a mixed-method design to examine what influences older adults' physical activity levels with three questions: (1) What individual and external factors predict older adults' physical activity levels? (2) What do older adults perceive as influencing their levels of physical activity? (3) To what extent do the quantitative results on older adults' physical activity levels agree and disagree with the qualitative findings on older adults' physical activity levels? Methods A convergent mixed-method design was used with questionnaire (n = 334) and interview (n = 14) data from adults 65 years and older. Regression analyses were used for quantitative measurements: physical activity, age, subjective socioeconomic status, health status, capability, opportunity, motivation, and depression. Content analysis was applied to the qualitative data. The two forms of data were then integrated to provide greater insights than would be obtained by either dataset separately. Results The regression analyses showed that previous physical activity, current motivation, health status, and age significantly predicted older adults' physical activity levels. The content analysis revealed that participants addressed all subcomponents of the COM-B model, indicating its pertinence in understanding how older adults discuss their current physical activity levels. The integrated findings showed convergent and divergent results. Overall results indicated that previous physical activity engagement, present motivation, capability, and opportunity influenced older adults' physical activity levels. Conclusions This study is the first to use this mixed-methods design to examine factors influencing physical activity levels among older adults living in rental apartments with community hosts. The integrated result reveals convergence for findings on motivation and physical capability but divergence on psychological capability, opportunity, and previous physical activity. The findings underscore a complex interplay of factors influencing older adults' physical activity levels and indicate relevance for the COM-B model. The results can guide future research on theoretically informed interventions to promote physical activity and healthy aging. Future research should clarify the role of opportunity for older adults' physical activity.

Athletic injuries are common in youth sports, and much research has focused on the injury experience of athletes. However, less attention has been given to the impact of adolescent injury on relevant others within athletes' recovery orbit, particularly parents. This narrative review examines the impact of adolescent injury on parents using the Multilevel Model of Sport Injury (MMSI). Results revealed that parents' experience of their adolescent's injury is influenced by intra- and interpersonal factors (e.g., thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and interactions with coaches, and sport medicine providers), as well as institutional, cultural, and policylevel factors (e.g., lack of organizational support, internalization of sport norms about playing with pain, and sport injury policies and guidelines). The review provides a more nuanced understanding of the factors and interactions that parents have following adolescent sport injury. Further research using the MMSI can extend current conceptualization and theorizing regarding parents' experiences following adolescent injury.

The commercialisation of children's and youth sports has experienced a significant rise in recent decades. Currently, there is a lack of in-depth knowledge regarding the implications of this commercialisation for Swedish youth participating in sport as well as family members directly involved in the youth sport experience. As such, the purpose of this study was to investigate parents' perceptions of commercialisation processes in children and youth sports in Sweden. In particular, we sought to examine why some parents are willing to pay for commercial alternatives and how the increased commercialisation of youth sport are associated with youth sport participation. We also sought to investigate parents' views about the impact of commercialised alternatives on coaches and voluntary sports clubs, both now and in the future. A total of nine focus group interviews were conducted, including a total of 48 parents (22 men and 26 women) strategically chosen based on their children's participation in different strands of commercialised sports businesses. The findings indicate that the excessive demands from voluntary sports clubs combined with the desire to be considered a good parent appear to influence parents' willingness to pay for commercialised businesses.

In order to help talented athletes to combine sport and education, different forms of Dual Career Support (DCS) have been developed in many countries. The effectiveness of these support systems have been debated. Most studies have investigated young athletes in the beginning of their careers, less is known about athletes who reached the highest levels. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the extent to which former Swedish world-class athletes have attended dual career sport programs at upper secondary school. A retrospective design was used with 274 former world-class athletes who answered a questionnaire. In order to investigate whether there was a relationship between attending a dual career sport school and athletic characteristics, as well as post career educational and employment outcomes, a series of Chi-square tests were conducted. The main results show that more than half of the athletes did not take part in any DCS. These results indicate that DCS in Sweden is not a decisive factor for success in sports as intended. Half of all participants, regardless of whether they studied at DCS, have studied at university, and all participants had a job at the time of data collection. The majority also consider that their financial situation has improved after their sports career.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine the significance of a social innovation, free lending of sports and leisure equipment (Leisure Equipment Library, LEL), have for children’s and youths’ participation in sports and leisure activities. Further, we discuss whether this service can contribute to counteract socioeconomic segregation in the leisure sector.

Methods: Data consists of lending statistics kept by LELs and a questionnaire (n=427) distributed to all children and youth (7-25 years) who visited a LEL. The significance of LEL for socioeconomic segregation was analysed using the concepts of bridging and bonding social capital.

Findings: In regards of age, gender, socioeconomic background and sports habits, LEL was used by a heterogenous group of children and youth. Borrowers living in areas with socioeconomic challenges were overrepresented and came primarily from the same type of socioeconomic area in which LELs were located. In most cases, the equipment was used for play or informal sport with friends and family in their own neighborhood. Only 13 percent used the equipment for organized sports. 

Discussion: To counteract socioeconomic segregation, it was important that LEL was used by children and youths from different socioeconomic areas. However, since most borrowers used the equipment with familiar people in the same area as it was borrowed, it is likely that these activities produce binding rather than bridging capital.  

Conclusion: To produce more bridging social capital, free lending of equipment should be complemented with actions to secure that the places children and youth meet are socioeconomically diverse.

Syftet med föreliggande rapport har varit att undersöka den fysiska aktivitetsgraden hos personer över 65 år i Karlstads kommun som bor i det kommunalabostadsbolagets trygghetslägenheter. Vi har även studerat vilka fysiska aktiviteter som äldre personer ägnar sig åt samt vill ägna sig åt för att bli mer fysiskt aktiva i framtiden. Resultaten visade att flertalet var tillräckligt fysiskt aktiva ur ett hälsoperspektiv, men också att en betydande del är stillasittande eller otillräckligt fysiskt aktiva. Därtill visade det sig att flera som tillhör gruppen otillräckligt fysiskt aktiva vill vara mer fysiskt aktiva under förutsättning att aktiviteterna finns i närheten av hemmet, om man får möjlighet att utöva aktiviteterna tillsammans med någon, om aktiviteterna kräver låga eller inga kostnader alls och/eller om man får stöttning av utbildade och kompetenta personer för att veta om man kan och hur man ska genomföra aktiviteterna utan att riskera sin hälsa. Med utgångspunkt i dessa resultat föreslås att aktiviteter anordnas i närheten av seniorernas boenden, att det startas upp promenadgrupper där man träffas regelbundet, att det inrättas tillgänglighetsanpassade gym både inomhus och utomhus, att aktiviteter anpassas efter rörelsemässiga behov, att personal utbildas så de känner sig trygga i sitt ledarskap, att idrottsföreningar bedriver uppsökande verksamhet, att informationstavlor sätts upp som visar tillgängliga motions- och träningsformer samt att det tillhandahålls övningar som kan genomföras i hemmet eller tillsammans med andra seniorer, gärna med tillhörande digitalt stöd.

Using short-term longitudinal data, the primary goal of the present study was to examine the interplay betweenadolescents’ sports-related intrapersonal (e.g., sports values) and interpersonal factors (e.g., perceived parentalinvolvement) in relation to sports dropout. A secondary goal was to explore the direction of effects in the as-sociation between intra- and interpersonal factors. A total of 420 adolescents (39% girls, Mage = 14.06; SDage =0.33) responded to a set of survey questions over two consecutive years. Results from structural equationmodeling suggested that parental involvement predicted adolescents’ dropout one year later, via sports values.Further, the results suggested that the direction of influence is mainly from parents to adolescents. Overall, thefindings indicate that adolescents whose parents attend their practices and games perceive sports activities asfun, important and useful; as a result, adolescents are less likely to dropout. The findings offer an improvedunderstanding of how parents’ behaviors may influence adolescents’ dropout of organized sports.