Maintaining, stopping or avoiding athletic activity: studying the impact of the confinements on the practice of physical fitness by students in France

Résumé 0

This article examines the conditions under which French students maintain, stop or do not initiate physical activity and sports during a period of confinement. It is based on the analysis of the answers of 585 university students, from various fields and levels of study, to a 58-question self-administered online questionnaire, addressing the following themes: socio-demographic and socio-professional characteristics; housing conditions during the first two periods of confinement; the adaptations made and the conditions for maintaining physical and sports activities during the periods of confinement. The article is organized around the comparative analysis of the responses to this questionnaire by: 1) students who maintained a practice during periods of confinement, 2) those who stopped their practice, 3) those who did not practice before and did not start during confinement. This analysis shows that gender and social origin, which usually explain inequalities in physical activity, are of little or no relevance here. The detachment from the parental home, the field and level of study and the transgression of the confinement measures appear to be central in order to understand the maintenance, the cessation or the non-initiation of physical activities during the confinement period.