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Author: Prof. Dr. Aleksandar Gadžić, Faculty of Physical Culture and Sports Management, the only sports faculty at Singidunum University.
Besides physical education and sports, recreation represents one of the three fundamental areas of physical culture. Physical education can be described as a lifelong process of acquiring motor skills, knowledge, and values that enrich a person’s biopsychosocial dispositions. Sport generally represents the maximum psychophysical engagement of an individual or team in achieving a given sports goal – overcoming opponents, distances, or motor tasks under clearly prescribed conditions. In everyday speech, when we say recreation, we usually think of active rest, however, in a broader sense, recreation represents a set of activities – active, but also passive ways of resting – relaxation. In the literal sense, the word recreation means re-creation and comes from the Latin word re-creare, which is the basis of the term re-creation in English and means refreshing the body and mind in preparation for work.
The field of recreation is crucial in physical culture because one of the fundamental goals of modern humans should be quality of life, and appropriate physical activity in leisure time is a way to recover from daily stressful obligations and improve the quality of life. All aspects of human life are, to some extent, related to the physical part of being, namely body movement and physical activity, but this part inevitably forms a complex sphere that is integrally made up of physical and psycho-socio-cultural human activity.
Foto: Konstantin Kocev
A better understanding of physical culture, as part of general culture, is possible if we accept the importance of values that are current in a society and the level of social development, as these two social characteristics have a huge mutual influence. As an illustration of differences in social understanding, or rather the position and evaluation of physical culture, the level of physical activity of the adult population in the European Union (EU) can serve as an example. At the EU level, statistically speaking, about 54% of the population engages in sports (recreation) rarely, sometimes or regularly, but in Scandinavian countries, where a positive attitude towards physical exercise and physical culture in general has been cultivated for many years, this percentage is significantly higher (63-69%). A very interesting fact about these countries is that they have the lowest mortality rate from cardiovascular diseases in the EU.
As for our country, there are no completely reliable data on the number of residents who regularly practice physical activity. However, according to research results from 2019, only 8.8% of the population of Serbia engaged in fitness, sports, or recreation for at least 10 minutes at least three times a week. According to statistical data from the Institute of Public Health Milan Jovanovic Batut for 2022, cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of mortality (over 47%), and it is a well-known fact that physical inactivity is cited as one of the main causes of these diseases.
Recreational players from badminton clubs in Kruševac and Kraljevo; Photo: Ana Aleksić
Although there are no exact figures on the “cost” to our country’s health system of everything related to the treatment and recovery process for people suffering from cardiovascular diseases, it is certainly a significant amount of money. Some of the more effective and much more economical approaches to at least mitigating the “epidemic” of cardiovascular diseases should be directed towards a much more active promotion and concrete support of recreational sports for the wider layers of society. Socially responsible companies could do more to support their employees by organizing or partially financing recreational activities. Schools could “bring back” sports sections, and more physical education teachers should be employed in preschool institutions, as relevant longitudinal research has shown that an early start to a physically active lifestyle (in terms of age, from the third year onwards) means a high probability that a person will maintain such a lifestyle into adulthood. This is precisely the reason why it is extremely important to start developing the habit of regular physical activity as early as possible, namely in preschool age.
1. Gadžić, A. (2019). Theory and Methodology of Physical and Health Education. Belgrade: Singidunum University.
2. Special Eurobarometer 472 (2017). https://sport.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/special-eurobarometer-472 en.pdf
3. Højstrup, S., Hartvig Thomsen, J., & Prescott, E. (2023). Disparities in Cardiovascular Disease and Treatment in the Nordic Countries. The Lancet Regional Health – Europe, Vol. 33, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanepe.2023.100699.
4. Republic Institute of Statistics (2021). EU for the development of statistics in Serbia. Research on the health of the population of Serbia in 2019.
5. Institute for Public Health Milan Jovanović Batut (2023). Health Statistical Yearbook of the Republic of Serbia for 2022.
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