Investing over £9 billion in bringing the 2012 Olympic Games to London has been justified by government ministers who claim that hosting sporting mega-events encourages more citizens to get involved in sport. In a society anxious about obesity and health, this is an important issue. However, based on previous games, most sociologists would question the evidence for these claims.
Sport England aims to involve 1 million more people in sport by 2012. It may have problems. The 2005 UK Time Use survey showed sport to be far behind sedentary activities such as watching television in most people’s priorities (Table 1). Poor health and lack of interest and time are cited by most UK adults as the key reasons why they are not currently involved in sport (Table 2).
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