Enjoyment of exercise moderates the impact of a school-based physical activity intervention
- PDF / 262,664 Bytes
- 8 Pages / 595.276 x 793.701 pts Page_size
- 46 Downloads / 193 Views
RESEARCH
Open Access
Enjoyment of exercise moderates the impact of a school-based physical activity intervention Margaret Schneider1* and Dan M Cooper2
Abstract Background: A school-based physical activity intervention designed to encourage adolescent girls to be more active was more effective for some participants than for others. We examined whether baseline enjoyment of exercise moderated response to the intervention. Methods: Adolescent girls with a low level of baseline activity who participated in a controlled trial of an intervention to promote increased physical activity participation (n = 122) self-reported their enjoyment of exercise and physical activity participation at baseline, mid-way through the intervention, and at the end of the 9-month intervention period. At all three time points, participants also underwent assessments of cardiovascular fitness (VO2peak) and body composition (percent body fat). Repeated measures analysis of variance examined the relationship of baseline enjoyment to change in physical activity, cardiovascular fitness, body composition and enjoyment of exercise. Results: A significant three-way interaction between time, baseline enjoyment, and group assignment (p < .01) showed that baseline enjoyment moderated the effect of the intervention on vigorous activity. Within the intervention group, girls with low enjoyment of exercise at baseline increased vigorous activity from pre-to postintervention, and girls with high baseline enjoyment of exercise showed no pre-post change in vigorous activity. No differences emerged in the comparison group between low-and high-enjoyment girls. Conclusion: Adolescent girls responded differently to a physical activity promotion intervention depending on their baseline levels of exercise enjoyment. Girls with low enjoyment of exercise may benefit most from a physicaleducation based intervention to increase physical activity that targets identified barriers to physical activity among low-active adolescent girls.
Background Evidence for the health-enhancing effects of physical activity continues to accrue, with many studies demonstrating the detrimental effects of inactivity [1,2]; yet, within the past century there has been a distressing increase in the prevalence of physical inactivity. In particular, rates of activity decline precipitously during adolescence [3], thus making the promotion of physical activity in this age group a public health priority [4]. The precise proportion of adolescents who fail to meet the current recommendations for physical activity (at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity [MVPA] on most days) is difficult to quantify, since * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Department of Planning, Policy, and Design, University of California at Irvine, California, USA Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
estimates vary widely depending on the method used to collect the data, but estimates are consistently below 50% [5-7]. Clearly, adolescence is a critical period for prom
Data Loading...
