Recommendations to improve physical activity among teenagers- A qualitative study with ethnic minority and European teenagers

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Annie Crowley¹  Non E Thomas²  Sinead Brophy³  Rebecca Hill³  Frances Rapport³  Rupal Mistry⁴  Sopna Choudhury⁵ 

[1]Africa Educational Trust, WC1 6JF, London, UK

[2]Centre for Children and Young People's Health and Well-Being, Swansea University, SA2 8PP, Wales, UK

[3]College of Medicine, Swansea University, SA2 8PP, Wales, UK

[4]Comic Relief, SE1 7TP, London, UK

[5]School of Health and Population Science, Birmingham University, Birmingham, UK

关键词: Physical activity;    teenagers;    ethnic minority;    qualitative;    focus groups;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-11-412

 received in 2011-01-10, accepted in 2011-05-31,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundTo understand the key challenges and explore recommendations from teenagers to promote physical activity with a focus on ethnic minority children.MethodsFocus groups with teenagers aged 16-18 of Bangladeshi, Somali or Welsh descent attending a participating school in South Wales, UK. There were seventy four participants (18 Somali, 24 Bangladeshi and 32 Welsh children) divided into 12 focus groups.ResultsThe boys were more positive about the benefits of exercise than the girls and felt there were not enough facilities or enough opportunity for unsupervised activity. The girls felt there was a lack of support to exercise from their family. All the children felt that attitudes to activity for teenagers needed to change, so that there was more family and community support for girls to be active and for boys to have freedom to do activities they wanted without formal supervision. It was felt that older children from all ethnic backgrounds should be involved more in delivering activities and schools needs to provide more frequent and a wider range of activities.ConclusionsThis study takes a child-focused approach to explore how interventions should be designed to promote physical activity in youth. Interventions need to improve access to facilities but also counteract attitudes that teenagers should be studying or working and not 'hanging about' playing with friends. Thus, the value of activity for teenagers needs to be promoted not just among the teenagers but with their teachers, parents and members of the community.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Brophy et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011