When laughter and physical activity opens the door to the kingdom of freedom : Danish seniors on the move towards improved health

In medieval and early modern times in Europe, popular games were an important element of social life (Elias and Dunning, 1986; Eichberg, 2012, 2013). Popular games had strong social elements of playfulness and laughter as well as violence and disorderliness (Eichberg, 2016), which disappeared with the civilizing process (Elias and Dunning, 1986). Even though the words ‘games’ and ‘play’ are still in use, they have come to represent the rule-based and orderly organization of modern sport – the Olympic Games and ‘playing’ football as the most well-known examples (Eichberg, 2013). Hand in hand with the hygienic turn and its dominant view of physical activity as health enhancement, playfulness became eradicated from physical activity (Eichberg, 2013; Winther, 2014). Research into physical activity to date has not fully considered the importance of the social-bodily processes of joy and laughter. Laughter as a social phenomenon has been exiled, along with the scientific questioning of the social meaning of laughing. Laughter has often been recognized as a causality of humour (Parvulescu, 2010) or in health research as a means to achieve a health goal (Hybholt and Friis Thing, 2019).