Deck 10: Sport and Health

Question 1

The reductionist paradigm of the body as machine has been widely critiqued by scholars who have raised all of the following concerns EXCEPT:

A) It encourages a sense of subjectivity and embodiment
B) It encourages mind-body dualism
C) It denies emotional or spiritual engagement
D) It neglects the influence of history, culture and power

Answer 1

A

Question 2

If your teammate Omar admits to you that he is suffering from depression and anxiety, he might find your sociological insights helpful. However, which of the following statements would NOT be true in this regard?

A) It is typical for elite-level athletes to suppress or distance themselves from mental health issues
B) Mental health issues are typically framed as individual concerns, but in reality, they are impacted by one's social surroundings
C) A very high proportion of current elite athletes have come forward and admitted that they suffer from mental health issues
D) Some former athletes have described themselves as 'survivors' of the sport system, which highlights some of the deep-rooted issues athletes can face

Answer 2

C

Question 3

If the ONLY way in which we consider our bodies is focused on rationalization and goal-rational action, then we risk:

A) Exaggerating the lived experience of the body, including its health or lack thereof
B) Dehumanizing people such as athletes
C) Overemphasizing the components of well-being
D) Prioritizing emotions, like fear, pleasure and pain, in our analyses of the body

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Regarding the reductionist conception of the body as a machine among Paralympic athletes, which of the following has been found by researchers?

A) Paralympic athletes are unlikely to downplay and disregard their sport-related injuries
B) Paralympic athletes routinely disregard their health to the point that their sport-related injuries can render them, in effect, more disabled
C) Paralympic athletes do not fear admitting their injuries because ableist stereotypes become redundant among this population
D) Paralympic athletes are tougher than able-bodied athletes and also do not get injured as often

Question 5

The common-sense understanding of sport as good for our health has been critiqued by sociologists because:

A) Sport is often conflated with physical education, exercise and play, which helps to overlook the differences between the various ways that sport can be practiced in more or less healthful ways
B) There is very little research that sport, played at any level, at any intensity or for any duration or frequency is good for our health
C) Injuries from sport are often worse than other major public health concerns like cancer, heart disease and diabetes
D) The language used in the public domain to connect sport and health is often overly pessimistic

Question 6

If an athlete comes to adopt an individualistic understanding of her body within society, she is LESS likely to:

A) Consider their personal pain and injury as their own responsibility
B) Consider the management of their pain and injury as part of their regular routines
C) Consider her pain and injury as primary a personal concern
D) Consider how the broader structure of high-level competitive sport created the conditions in which she and her sport exists

Question 7

In relation to health, factors like socio-economic status, food security, access to healthcare, social inclusion, education and job security would be understood by sociologists under the general term of ______:

A) Socio-economic factors of health (SEFOH)
B) Social determinants of health (SDOH)
C) Non-biological components of health determination (NBCOHD)
D) Cultural factors of health (CFOH)

Question 8

Which of the following is FALSE regarding the trickle-down theory of hosting major sporting events?

A) There is substantial evidence of structural or systemic barriers for some individuals and communities that preclude full access to and opportunity for sport
B) Arguments promoting the trickle-down theory are routinely made by public officials and politicians supporting the event
C) The trickle-down theory is used routinely to support the ideology that sport is good for us and good for society
D) Empirical evidence for positive changes related to the trickle-down theory is strong and prevalent

Question 9

Clara Hughes and DeMar DeRozan are unique as athletes because they have:

A) Come forward and admitted struggling with mental health issues
B) Overcome brain injuries and continued competing in their respective sports
C) Challenged the mainstream ideology of healthism by leading social movements to highlight the culpability of leagues/administrators in athletes' health issues
D) Survived physical/sexual abuse from coaches and came forward to talk about it

Question 10

How would a member of the general public LEAST likely understand slimness, implicitly, as a social construct?

A) As a marker of personal restraint, self-discipline and good character
B) As a model of healthy living
C) As a marker that might induce feelings of guilt, shame and embarrassment at the sight of larger or heavier bodies
D) As an indication of poor health, due to the likelihood of severe and prevalent health conditions like anorexia and bulimia

Question 11

The term social gradient in relation to health means:

A) A term that highlights how health travels along a spectrum, whereby socioeconomic status and health outcomes are considered closely interrelated
B) Behaviour that overconforms to accepted rules or standards and interferes with others
C) A concept that can be loosely defined as the lived experience of having a body and being a body
D) The world's dominant system of economic exchange, intimately tied to social relations of production and reproduction

Question 12

Which of the following scenarios would be the BEST working example of someone internalizing the ideology of healthism?

A) Steve blames his warehouse employer for pushing him to aggravate his bad back and vows to lobby his local MP to pass a bill to improve working conditions for all warehouse employees
B) Jagmeet is obese and understands that the lack of access to healthy, affordable food in his local area is a key factor in his condition
C) Gurpinder wants to get treatment for her asthma, unknowingly aggravated by the fumes from the local smelting plant, but cannot afford the medical bills and so blames herself
D) Kiyoshi is seeking compensation from a local wind turbine farm after medical results proved the sound pollution intensified his migraines

Question 13

When we think of our bodies solely in functional terms, we tend to ignore its:

A) Biological components
B) Anatomical components
C) Social components
D) Physiological components

Question 14

Who is often referred to as the 'Father of Medicine' in recognition of his seminal contributions to the field?

A) Socrates
B) Aristotle
C) Pythagoras
D) Hippocrates

Question 15

The ideology that health is an individual responsibility is commonly referred to as the ideology of _____.

A) Ableism
B) Healthism
C) Individualism
D) Socialism

Question 16

Which of the following is NOT true of the culture of risk in sports?

A) Within it, athletes are expected to tolerate health-compromising practices
B) Within it, pain and injury tolerance is considered a marker of strength and character
C) It only exists within male-dominated sports
D) It can push athletes to undertake acts of deviance that are tolerated or rationalized within the culture but not outside of it

Question 17

All of the following have been found by researchers to be a consequence of athletes traveling higher up the competitive ladder EXCEPT:

A) The more likely they are to enjoy their sport intrinsically
B) The more likely they are to become alienated from their activity
C) The greater the emphasis becomes on their ability to produce winning performances
D) The less attention is paid to the preservation of health

Question 18

Rags-to-riches stories in sport are:

A) supported by a swathe of academic research alluding to its commonality and likelihood.
B) used to prop up the ideology of sport as a meritocracy - a viable and reliable means of escaping poverty
C) underplayed in media narratives and biographical accounts of athletes' personal journeys.
D) rarely used as inspiring stories in the media due to the fact they are exceptional and unlikely.

Question 19

Behaviour that goes so far in following commonly accepted rules or standards that it interferes with the wellbeing of self and others is termed _____?

A) Positive deviance
B) Negative deviance
C) Goal-rational deviance
D) Ethical deviance

Question 20

When at athlete dies during a sporting competition, it is most likely that the media will react by stressing:

A) The coach as being culpable
B) The respective sport governing body as being culpable
C) The outcome as tragic and freak accident where no one, necessarily, is culpable, except perhaps the athlete him/herself
D) The broader culture of risk in sport as to blame

Question 21

Nik Zoricic is best known as:

A) The Canadian hockey player who died of a drug overdose after NHL doctors prescribed prescription drugs to treat his mental health issues
B) The Canadian swimmer who died in the pool after a heart attack caused by a reaction to drugs, he was prescribed by his coach
C) The Canadian ski-cross athlete who died during a crash into a snow bank while competing in a World Cup race
D) The Canadian football player who died of CTE - the first Canadian to die of this disease

Question 22

The 'female athlete triad' is a combination of three different disorders that supposedly result from female athletes overexerting themselves in high-level competitive sport. Which of the following is NOT one of those three conditions?

A) Disorder eating
B) Amenorrhea
C) Osteoporosis
D) ACL injuries

Question 23

Which of the following factors has NOT been emphasized by sociologists as a reason for the persistence of health problems associated with professional football?

A) The organization of professional sport
B) The players' poor discipline
C) Medical negligence
D) The negligence of corporations connected to professional sports

Question 24

In relation to the issue of athletes' responses to injuries in sport, the example of Sydney Crosby can be considered relevant because:

A) He pushed back against the 'no pain, no gain' ethos of the NHL and decided to protect his health above performance after sustaining concussions
B) As the league's best player, he orchestrated a walkout against the NHL in protest of their treatment of the issue of brain injuries in hockey players
C) He sustained several concussions while playing hockey, but decided to play on through them regardless of the consequences to his personal health, thereby serving as an ideal model of the 'no pain, no gain' ethos
D) He has led a movement to ban fighting in hockey, given the new evidence emerging about its connection to brain injuries and long-term cognitive and neurological problems in players who fight

Question 25

Despite evidence that female athletes exhibit similar tendencies to play through pain and injury, sociological research has found that:

A) Female athletes are still framed, at times, as having bodies that are inherently unsuitable for sport
B) Female athletes are at a greater risk of developing injuries than male athletes
C) Female athletes have a much higher pain threshold than male athletes
D) Female athletes are more likely to try and inflict injuries on their opponents

Question 26

When the issue of head injuries and possible neurological and cognitive problems of football players was first brought to the attention of the NFL, they responded by:

A) Immediately launching enquiries into the connection
B) Supporting independent research examining the issue
C) Working with journalists, scientists and doctors to better understand the evidence being uncovered
D) Outright denying the evidence and downplaying the risks of brain injury in football

Question 27

The essay by Gladwell into brain injuries in professional football argued that:

A) Professional football should be banned
B) We show the same collective concern about animal welfare as we do for the human casualties of professional football
C) Tackling above the waist in football should be outlawed and the sport should strive to become more like rugby in its play
D) The players accept all of the risks but receive a fraction of the reward, while the owners and league receive most of the reward but accept none of the risks.

Question 28

Recent research into what particular injury or health concern has been used, by way of describing it as an 'epidemic' in women's sports, to frame female athletes as being in greater need of guidance and protection compared to male athletes?

A) CTE
B) Bulimia
C) ACL injuries
D) Osteoporosis

Question 29

Incredibly, researchers from the Victorian era claimed that, if a woman played vigorous sport,

A) She would likely die at a much younger age
B) She would lose the ability to bear children
C) She would likely immediately tear her ACL and be unable to walk
D) She would begin to grow chest hair

Question 30

Plaintiffs for the lawsuit against the NHL in 2018, on the subject of brain injuries in professional hockey, were each awarded as compensation, approximately:

A) $5 million
B) $1.1 million
C) $550,000
D) $22,000