Physical Activity Correlates, Perceived Enjoyment And Quality Of Participation In Children's Structured Play

Understanding the factors that promote physical activity (PA) participation is essential for the development of an effective PA intervention for preventing pediatric obesity. The quality of PA participation during an intervention is assessed by objectively measuring PA intensity. PURPOSE: To assess the relationships among the factors of attraction, self-efficacy and social support for PA with objective measures of the quality of PA (QPA) participation and real-time perceptions of enjoyment of common children's games during structured play. METHODS: Third grade children (8-10 y) volunteered for the study. During the informed consent visit, the children completed questionnaires to assess attraction to PA, positive and negative social support for PA, and PA self-efficacy. The children wore an accelerometer on the right hip to record QPA in counts/min while playing a random selection of 10 games. Immediately following each game, the children scored their perceived enjoyment on a 9-point Likert scale of facial expressions. Regression analyses examined the relationships among the correlates of PA, QPA and perceived enjoyment of the games. RESULTS: Twenty-eight children (15 boys and 13 girls; 12 healthy weight and 16 overweight according to CDC's BMI classifications) participated in 7 - 10 games. The scores for the psychosocial constructs were as follows: attraction: 3.4±0.4 (4 point scale); positive support: 9.6±1.6 (11-point scale); negative support: 0.2±0.5 (7 point scale); and self-efficacy: 12.9±1.9 (15-point scale). The children enjoyed the games (7.3±2.0) but attraction to PA was the only significant predictor for enjoyment (p<0.01). QPA participation was above the cut-point for moderate intensity PA (>803 counts/min) for this age group (2958±1.1 counts/min), although no psychosocial variable predicted QPA participation level during the games (p=0.21; r= -0.12 to 0.09). No relationship existed between real-time perception of enjoyment and QPA (r= 0.02). CONCLUSION: There was no positive relationship between the correlates of PA, the real-time measures of enjoyment and QPA participation during the structured games in this laboratory-based study. More research is necessary to determine if similar findings would persist in a free-living environment over time. Funded by Boston Children's Hospital