Correlates of physical activity in youth: a review of quantitative systematic reviews

Authors

Biddle, SJH; Atkin, AJ; Cavill, N and Foster, C

Date

2011

Keywords

Physical activity; youth; determinants.

Country of research

United Kingdom

Summary of findings 

This article presents the findings of a review of nine systematic quantitative reviews of research relating to factors associated with children’s and adolescents’ (less than 19 years of age) physical activity (PA).  The article outlines the search strategy, the inclusion criteria, the approach to data extraction and the criteria for strength and quality of evidence and the extent to which each review met these criteria.  The authors provide details of the findings related to a range of variables - age and gender; ethic origin; socio-economic status; body-mass index (BMI); psychological variables; behavioural correlates and social/cultural correlates. Its broad conclusions are as follows:

• Decline in PA by age is common, being most marked in late childhood and early adolescence especially for girls.  However, more specific and precise measures of activity might reveal information on activity preferences.
• Findings on ethnicity are either small or inconsistent.  However, samples are small and there is insufficient study of specific cultural groups and socio-economic status.
• Data are unclear about importance of socio-economic status for children and adolescence.  But there are significant definitional and measurement issues relating to socio-economic status.
• Higher BMI correlates with low PA levels only for adolescent girls, but not possible to establish direction of influence.
• Competence perceptions seem to be an important correlate of PA for adolescents (although there are variations in the definition and measurement of ‘competence’).  However, a self-focussed, intrinsic task orientation is likely to be beneficial for motivation and well-being of young people.  Enjoyment of PA is more important for girls than boys and this is likely to be linked to perceived self-efficacy.  It is recommended that future studies of psychological correlates of PA focus on the physical self and not just general self-perceptions.
• Overall, sedentary time was inconsistently associated with activity, suggesting that some sedentary behaviours can co-exist with PA.
• Findings suggest that playing sport may be a good indicator of PA in adolescents, but sport may not be the answer for all (especially girls).
• Parents are the key social and cultural correlate, with parental support being the key.  However this comes in many forms (social, material, emotional: encouragement, involvement, facilitation) and further investigation is required.  Evidence is less clear concerning the relationship between parental PA and child and adolescent PA.  It seems that greater family cohesion, parent-child communication and parental engagement are all independent predictors of PA.
• Environmental variables, while seemingly holding great potential for understanding PA in children and adolescents, require greater clarity and further study.  Variables clustered around access, opportunities and availability to be active are associated with higher levels of PA.

The authors point to a number of methodological shortcomings in this area of study: measurement of PA is too dependent on self-report, although this is changing; too few studies of how overall PA is constituted; many studies use different measures and definitions; many studies are cross-sectional; there is a need for greater use of validated psychological measures.  More specifically, the nine reviews were not precise in defining PA and they conducted their reviews in different ways and provided variable evidence about the strength of associations.  Limited information was provided about types of PA, location and social context and frequency, duration and intensity of PA and measurement errors are a significant weakness.

The authors’ conclude that beyond age and gender correlates are likely to have only small or small-to-moderate effects in isolation and may work best in interaction with other influences, although we are not close to identifying the nature of these interactions.  Psychologists will need to incorporate a wider range of variables beyond individual psycho-social constructs if they are to contribute fully to the understanding of participation in PA among young people.

Methodology

Systematic review

Source of reference

International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 4(1),

Web reference

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1750984X.2010.548528