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Wellbeing has firmly established itself within contemporary practice, politics and policy. Indeed, the cultural, commercial, and terrestrial landscape of the concept is staggering and manifests within popular discourse and across global organisations and institutions, national governments, workplaces, and consumer lifestyle products and services. Notably, the field of sport, exercise, and physical activity has been identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations, and the OECD as a key sector with the potential to contribute to people's wellbeing. This should not be surprising given that there is a large body of literature espousing the benefits of regular physical activity (in myriad forms) as part of a healthy lifestyle. However, there are increasing concerns that wellbeing's global ubiquity may be leading to a range of unintended consequences and/or unscrupulous practices within both international organisations and nation-states. This largely conceptual essay focuses on the concept and process of wellbeing washing by (1) tracing the historical roots and evolution of wellbeing; (2) exploring its reconceptualization within the framework of neoliberalism; (3) offering a preliminary outline of the concept of wellbeing washing; and (4) briefly describing how wellbeing washing is manifesting within the context of sport in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Overall, this analysis explores wellbeing as a contested terrain of interests marked by a range of complexities and contradictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Athlete maltreatment in organized sport has attracted considerable attention from governing bodies, stakeholders and the general public. Despite numerous studies and policy proposals from various countries, the problem remains unresolved due to its inherent complexity. Drawing upon the concept of 'a wicked problem' widely utilized in policy analysis, this study first identifies the wicked features of maltreatment, focusing on: (1) the difficulty of establishing a definition of maltreatment; (2) the challenges of identifying its causes; and (3) the impediments to identifying solutions in a context of embedded stakeholders and unintended consequences. To provide further analysis, we compare athlete maltreatment with other issues in sport such as doping and match-fixing, to suggest that lessons can be drawn from other wicked problems in the same contested terrain. Overall, given the complex interplay between maltreatment and the maintenance/legitimization of sport systems, this paper calls for continuing attention and evaluation of existing research/policies and advocates for a more multidimensional view that acknowledges maltreatment as a wicked problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]