plan repeatedly highlights that measures should be geared toward increasing people’s competencies and literacy. 8 In this context, a central question arises: which are those competencies that empower people to lead healthy, physically active lifestyles? To date, there is no interdisciplinary
Search Results
Competencies for a Healthy Physically Active Lifestyle—Reflections on the Model of Physical Activity-Related Health Competence
Johannes Carl, Gorden Sudeck, and Klaus Pfeifer
Active Lifestyle Adherence among Individuals with and Without Disabilities
Bethany Shifflett, Carol Cator, and Nancy Megginson
This study was designed to examine adherence to an active lifestyle among individuals with and without physical disabilities. A Likert-type, 32-item survey was developed that contained five factors identified as perceived competence, social support, benefits, health barriers, and facilities barriers. Reliability estimates within factors ranged from .74 to .88. The survey, in its final form, was distributed to 495 individuals enrolled in undergraduate studies. The 203 individuals (141 nondisabled, 62 injured/disabled) who completed the survey constituted the study’s sample (38% male, 62% female). Among nondisabled subjects, the perceived competence and benefits categories were significantly related to adherence. For those with disabilities, the benefits factor appeared important to their adherence to an active lifestyle, followed by facilities and health barriers.
Understanding the Essence of a Physically Active Lifestyle: A Phenomenological Study of Women 65 and Older
Mary Ann Kluge
This phenomenological study explored the nature and meaning of being physically active from the standpoint of 15 women age 65 and older. The analysis presents a multitextured description of how 15 women maintained a physically active lifestyle for most of their lives. It provides information about why 15 older women value being physically active and how they negotiated a physically active lifestyle throughout their lives. Findings suggest that continuity of a physically active lifestyle was not a luxury these women experienced over the life course. Being physically active was affected by gender socialization, ageist attitudes, and physical challenges. Nonetheless, these long-lived, physically active women hung on to a concept of themselves as physically active; they demonstrated that active is an attitude and moving is a consequence. They have learned to improvise and, now more than ever, have taken control of their lives by being planful about being physically active.
Self-Determination in Physical Education: Designing Class Environments to Promote Active Lifestyles
Charity L. Bryan and Melinda A. Solmon
Recently, the lack of physical activity and increasing rates of childhood obesity have received a great deal of attention in the United States. One way to combat inactivity in children is to utilize physical education programs as a means to promote active lifestyles. There is not, however, a consensus concerning how physical education programs can achieve the goal of increasing children’s physical activity patterns. The purpose of this review is to examine motivational constructs that can provide a theoretical framework to identify strategies that can be used in physical education classes to promote engagement in physical activity. Self-determination theory is offered as a framework that has the potential to integrate these motivational constructs and provide a more complete understanding of how practitioners can structure learning environments to foster motivation and engagement in activity. Suggestions are made for implementing the research into practice, as well as future research directions.
‘Screenagers’ and In/Active Lifestyles: A Socio-Cultural Analysis of Healthy Life Span Promotion
Margaret MacNeill
Young people are increasingly the targets of public health and private-public sector campaigns to promote active lifestyles and longevity of the life span (Arnett, 2012; Faulkner, Kwan, Brownrigg, & MacNeill, 2011). Yet media campaigns alone cannot redress the barriers to physical activity. In this paper I argue that theories of life span and social marketing approaches to health promotion share a grounding in the behavioral sciences that need to be broadened to consider social determinants of active and inactive lifestyles and uncover how youth audiences make sense of health promotions. As such, I suggest how the social marketing of healthy life spans can move upstream to advocate policies and programs for youth activity. In this article I a) critically examine our shifting notions of youth and assumptions about life span, b) highlight trends in media consumption by youth, c) consider how kinesiology can broaden the social marketing lens to active media advocacy for social justice, and d) raise implications for research and intervention.
Perceptions of a School-Based Self-Management Program Promoting an Active Lifestyle among Elementary Schoolchildren, Teachers, and Parents
Greet Maria Cardon, Leen Liesbeth Haerens, Stefanie Verstraete, and Ilse de Bourdeaudhuij
The present study aimed to investigate how classroom-based self-management lessons to promote physical activity were perceived by students, teachers, and parents. The self-management lessons were implemented by an external physical education specialist in 20 class groups at eight elementary schools. Program perceptions were evaluated in 412 children (mean age 9.7 ± 0.7) using a short questionnaire. Oral surveys were used with 20 teachers and 50 parent participants. Most children were enthusiastic about the program and more than half of them reported being more active. Teachers and parents also perceived the lessons as useful and half of them reported an improvement in children’s physical activity awareness. Eighty percent of the teachers and 32% of the parents perceived an increase in children’s physical activity levels. The SPARK self-management physical activity program appears to promote an active lifestyle in children and was positively received; the implementation of the program by the teachers needs further evaluation.
Extracurricular School-Based Sports as a Stepping Stone Toward an Active Lifestyle? Differences in Physical Activity and Sports-Motivation Between Extracurricular School-Based Sports Participants and Non-Participants
An De Meester, Greet Cardon, Ilse De Bourdeaudhuij, and Leen Haerens
Purpose:
The goals were to investigate whether extracurricular school-based sports reach students not engaging in community sports and whether extracurricular school-based sports participants are more physically active and/or autonomously motivated toward sports than nonparticipants.
Method:
1526 students (48.0% boys; 85.9% Belgian natives; age = 15.34 ± 1.83y) completed validated questionnaires to assess sports participation, physical activity (PA) and sports-motivation. Multilevel regression analyses were conducted.
Results:
Only 28.7% of all students (n = 438), and 19.7% of students not engaging in community sports (n = 123), participated in extracurricular school-based sports. Participants were significantly more physically active [β=44.19, S.E.=17.34, χ2(1)=6.50, p = .01] and autonomously motivated [β=.18, S.E.=.04, χ2(1)=25.62, p < .001] than nonparticipants, even after controlling for community sports participation. Boys were more physically active and autonomously motivated than girls (p < .001).
Conclusion:
As participation is linked to higher PA-levels and autonomous motivation, increasing overall participation rates may contribute to children developing a more physically active lifestyle and achieving the PA guidelines.
Associations of Physical Activity Policies With Sports Participation in EU Countries: Higher Overall Levels, Smaller Social Inequalities, and More Positive Trends Since 2009
Michael Mutz and Marlena van Munster
and active lifestyles, many European governments as well as EU institutions have agreed on health-enhancing physical activity (HEPA) policies. Precisely, EU member states agreed upon 23 single HEPA policy measures in 2013, fully explained by Breda et al. 18 In short, these measures refer to policy
Maintenance of Exercise Habit and Its Impact on Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Previously Sedentary People: A 7-Year Follow-Up
Sabrina Masotti, Erica Menegatti, Valentina Zerbini, Andrea Raisi, Tommaso Piva, Martina Morelli, Rosario Lordi, Giovanni Grazzi, Gianni Mazzoni, and Simona Mandini
this study was to evaluate the rate of maintenance of an active lifestyle and the maintenance of amelioration of cardiovascular risk factors in previously sedentary people, obtained following the 1-year guided walking program ( Mandini, Collini, et al., 2018 ), 7 years after the end of the guided
Can Conceptual Physical Education Promote Physically Active Lifestyles?
Darren Dale, Charles B. Corbin, and Thomas F. Cuddihy
This study examined the physical activity participation of students in a large southwestern high school 1–3 years after they had been exposed to a 9th-grade conceptual physical education program. Comparisons were made to students exposed to traditional physical education. Students were assessed using physical activity questions from the 1995 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Students from the conceptual program met adolescent guidelines for physical activity, especially those who participated in the program in its first year of operation. Females were significantly less likely to report sedentary behaviors if they had been exposed to the conceptual, rather than traditional, high school physical education program.
