Adolescents’ engagement in physical activity - measurements, risks and outcomes

Abstract

Maintaining and increasing the engagement in physical activity (PA) of younger people continues to have relevance because the level of PA of adolescents has not improved but even deteriorated during the last decade. It is widely known that PA is indispensable for a good health and for preventing various diseases. In this thesis we aimed to explore the engagement in PA of adolescence and the factors (i.e. risks and outcomes) related to it, including the best ways to measure it. This thesis shows that engagement in PA and body composition among adolescence should be assessed with better measures. In addition, our findings confirmed that PA in adolescents relates to various health outcomes such as body composition, cardiovascular fitness, self-rated health, and medically attended injuries. Moreover, this thesis shows that factors that influence adolescents’ PA engagement regard various levels, i.e. the intrapersonal level (e.g. body image, body composition, knowledge and experience in PA), the interpersonal level (e.g. family, friends, surroundings), and organisational (e.g. school) and the environmental level (e.g. a PA-promoting environment, leisure constraints).