Book Review

摘要

The focus of Dominic Malcolm’s latest book is on the relationship between sport, medicine and health in modern society. The author examines sports medicine as a specialised branch of medical knowledge addressed to athletes and people in general, involving a wide variety of actors, objectives and activities. He acknowledges the shift in emphasis in everyday physical activity from character building to maintenance of health in the late twentieth century which, along with the intense professionalisation of health care for athletes, is provocatively called the ‘medicalization of sport’. The process involves the propensity of elite sport organisations to invest in medical infrastructure as a means to develop athletic ability, thereby increasing sporting success, and also the insistence of governments and physicians on a physically active lifestyle for people to remain healthy.