Résumé
Within sport, the way in which we understand our body becomes tightly intertwined with the fulfillment of various identities. The relationship between an athlete’s identity and their understanding of their body has been previously explored in sports in which performance demands that athletes maintain thin muscular bodies; little work has explored sports that require large bodies. This gap was addressed by two studies that sought to understand the role that sport plays in how Canadian varsity football linemen make sense of their bodies. An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of semi-structured interviews with seven current and retired U-Sports football linemen found that identity processes manifested in four major themes; a reframing of their bodies as fulfilling a purpose within football, a sense of belonging within the sport, tensions between body priorities, and an awareness of football as being temporary. An autoethnography supplemented the findings of the IPA by highlighting the effects of forced retirement on identity and body-related perceptions. Taken together, these studies provided evidence that, for those with large bodies, participating in football led to a positive change in the way participants understood their body and a strong commitment to the athlete-identity of lineman. However, the participants still experienced social pressure to be thin and unanimously desired to continue to be active and/or lose weight at the end of their football careers. These findings suggest a body protective effect within large-bodied sports that may facilitate sport participation for overweight youth, while developing lasting exercise behaviours.
