Psycho-social correlates of physical activity in young adolescents
A cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the association between demographic and psychosocial factors with physical activity levels of four hundred, 13 year-old adolescents in Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia. Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Children (PAQ-C) was used to assess physic...
Saved in:
Main Authors: | , |
---|---|
Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Nutrition Society of Malaysia
2008
|
Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/6806/ http://www.nutriweb.org.my/publications/mjn0014_2/supplement.pdf |
Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
Summary: | A cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the association between demographic
and psychosocial factors with physical activity levels of four hundred, 13 year-old adolescents in
Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia. Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Children (PAQ-C) was used to
assess physical activity levels among the participants. The respondents comprised 41.8% males
and 58.2% females encompassing 56.2% Malays, 42.0% Chinese, and 1.8% Indians. More than one
third of the respondents were in the low physical activity level, most (61.5%) were in the moderate
category and only 3.0% were in the high physical activity level. Males were more physically
active than females (c2=23.667, p=0.0001). Female adolescents (45.1%) were twice as many as male
respondents (22.1%) to fall in the low physical activity level category. Physical activity level was
not correlated with ethnicity, but there was a significant interaction effect of sex and ethnicity in
mean physical activity score (F=8.343, p=0.004) which indicated that Malay males had a higher
mean physical activity score compared to Chinese males while Chinese females had a higher
mean physical activity score than Malay females. For psycho-social factors, physical activity was
positively correlated with physical activity self-efficacy (r=0.496, p=0.0001), peer influence (r=0.468,
p=0.0001), family influence (r=0.298, p=0.0001) and beliefs for physical activity outcome (r=0.207,
p=0.0001) while negatively associated with depression (r=-0.116, p=0.021) and body size discrepancy
(r=-0.143, p<0.01). Further, respondents who had a better perception of their current health status
were more physically active (c2=21.062, p=0.0001). However, physical activity was not correlated
with perception of weight status and body parts satisfaction. Multivariate analysis showed that
physical activity self-efficacy, sex and peer influence were found to be significant in explaining
physical activity among adolescents. Findings from this study suggest that physical activity
intervention should include physical activity self-efficacy and social influence components in
interventions designed to promote regular physical activity in adolescence.
|
---|