Relationship Between Physical Activity and Subjective Well-Being Among College Students: The Mediating Role of Social Support

Subjective well-being is a key concept in positive psychology and is associated with a variety of physical and mental health outcomes. Physical activity (PA) is a modifiable health behavior that has been identified as a potential correlate of subjective well-being. However, the underlying mechanisms that connect PA to subjective well-being are not well-understood. This study aimed to examine the association between the PA and various components of subjective well-being in college students, and to determine if social support mediated this association. A total of 1158 college students (46.3% female, mean age = 19.75 years) voluntarily completed a set of questionnaires measuring PA, life satisfaction, positive affect, negative affect, and social support in a single-wave assessment. Three sets of mediation analyses were conducted (employing bootstrapping techniques with 10,000 samples), with life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect serving as the dependent variables, PA as the independent variable, and social support as the mediator. The findings revealed that the relationships between PA, subjective well-being, and social support differ by the component of subjective well-being. While no association was detected between PA and negative affect, increased PA led to enhanced social support, which in turn contributed to higher levels of life satisfaction and positive affect. As social support was found to mediate the relationship between PA and subjective well-being, future interventions are suggested to foster supportive social environments and develop effective strategies to modify the social experience of PA to maximize their benefits in enhancing subjective well-being.