Understanding disparities in healthy living from an intersectional perspective

Although it is beneficial for middle-aged women to be involved in leisure-time physical activity, far from all women in this age group manage to live up to this ideal. In this chapter, I will link such disparities in healthy living to the social factors that shape the everyday lives of these women and determine their opportunities to engage in a healthy and active lifestyle. I offer narratives of three women in their 40s and 50s and highlight the variety in their backgrounds. The concept of intersectionality will help us analyse the many social factors that shape individuals’ participation in sport and leisure-time physical activity such as ability, age, ethnicity, gender, religion, and social class. I argue that an intersectional perspective is important in sport, leisure, and health studies, since it can help us pay attention to often hidden exclusionary mechanisms and inequality-creating social structures.