Predictors of Physical Activity and Sports and Their Influence on the Wellbeing of Adolescents

Abstract

The present study aimed to assess whether contextual influences on practice of physical activity and sports among adolescents – as it is the case of practice of sports by important people in their lives, encouragement to playing sports from important people in their lives, the importance of and reasons for playing sports among adolescents, and their intention to play sports in the future – predict psychological wellbeing and life satisfaction in this population, and whether effective practice of physical activity and sports by adolescents work as a mediating variable in these relations. This study involved 3.396 school-aged adolescents from Southern Brazil. The instruments adopted were: the block on physical activity and practice of sports of The Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey; the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), for psychological wellbeing assessment; and the Overall Life Satisfaction (OLS). The results, obtained by means of hierarchical linear regression analysis, confirmed the hypotheses that effective practice of physical activity and sports by adolescents operates as a mediator between the influences on practice of physical activity/sports among adolescents, psychological wellbeing and life satisfaction. These results show that, with respect to practice of physical activity/sports in adolescence, contextual influences are important for psychological wellbeing and life satisfaction. However, effective practice of physical activity/sports should be encouraged and implemented in a variety of possible contexts in the life of adolescents as a strategy towards the promotion of this population’s quality of life.