Social support, physical activity and sedentary behavior among 6th-grade girls: a cross-sectional study.

Deanna M Hoelscher,Andrew E Springer,Steven H Kelder

doi:10.1186/1479-5868-3-8

Abstract

BackgroundDespite the importance of social support in promoting physical activity, little is known about the relative influence of the type or source of social support on adolescent girls' physical activity and sedentary behaviors. This study examined the associations of two types of social support (social participation in and social encouragement for physical activity) and two social support sources (family and friends) with self-reported daily minutes of physical activity and sedentary behavior among sixth-grade girls in Texas.MethodsA secondary analysis of 718 sixth-grade girls between the ages of 10 to 14 was performed using cross-sectional baseline data from an osteoporosis prevention intervention study. Physical activity and sedentary behaviors (television-video viewing and computer-video game playing) were assessed using 3 administrations of the Self-Administered Physical Activity Checklist; social support indicators were assessed with Likert-type items from a psychosocial questionnaire.ResultsIn multiple linear regression analyses, friend physical activity participation (partial correlation coefficient (r) = 0.10, p = .009) and friend (r = 0.12) and family encouragement (r = 0.11) (p < .01, respectively) were positively related to moderate-to-vigorous physical activity in the full model with other support variables, BMI and ethnicity; friend encouragement was the only variable positively related to vigorous physical activity (r = 0.11, p = .005). Family participation in physical activity had the strongest negative correlation with total minutes of television-video viewing and computer-video playing (r = -0.08, p < .05).ConclusionFindings lend support to the importance of social support for physical activity among adolescent girls but suggest that the source and type of social support may differ for physical activity and sedentary behaviors. Further research is needed to assess the causal or reciprocal relation between the roles of friends and family in promoting physical activity and of family physical activity in decreasing sedentary behaviors among early adolescent girls.

Highlights

Despite the importance of social support in promoting physical activity, little is known about the relative influence of the type or source of social support on adolescent girls' physical activity and sedentary behaviors
We found no significant differences between the analysis of variance (ANOVA) model and the linear regression model for the vigorous physical activity and combined sedentary behavior outcome variables, which provided support for the use of linear regression methods to analyze these variables
Source of social support we found that both friend and family support were significantly correlated with girls' physical activity levels, the significant correlations between both friend social support indicators with moderate-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) as well as friend encouragement with vigorous physical activity (VPA) may suggest that friends play a more important role in influencing physical activity levels of adolescent girls

Summary

Introduction

Despite the importance of social support in promoting physical activity, little is known about the relative influence of the type or source of social support on adolescent girls' physical activity and sedentary behaviors. Despite the importance of establishing a physically active lifestyle early in life [2], results from a CDC national study of children aged 9 to 13 indicated that 61.5% do not participate in any organized physical activity during their non-school hours and that 22.6% do not engage in any free-time physical activity [3]. Children tend to become less physically active as they move through adolescence, and female adolescents have been found to engage in less physical activity than male adolescents [4,5] Sedentary behaviors such as television watching have been associated with potentially adverse health conditions such as child overweight [6,7,8] and have been hypothesized to displace time spent in physical activity [9,10]. The health consequences of inactivity, the large proportion of U.S children who are inactive, and gender prevalence disparities in physical activity underscore the need for continued exploration of the factors that promote physical activity among adolescents, especially among females

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