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Teenage recommendations to improve physical activity for their age group: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND: It is recommended that young people should engage in 60 min of moderate-to-vigorous activity (MVPA) a day for health benefits, but few teenagers actually meet this recommendation. Policy-makers play a vital role in designing physical activity initiatives, but they generally do this with...

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Autores principales: James, Michaela, Todd, Charlotte, Scott, Samantha, Stratton, Gareth, McCoubrey, Sarah, Christian, Danielle, Halcox, Julian, Audrey, Suzanne, Ellins, Elizabeth, Anderson, Samantha, Copp, Isabel, Brophy, Sinead
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5859389/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29558987
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-5274-3
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author James, Michaela
Todd, Charlotte
Scott, Samantha
Stratton, Gareth
McCoubrey, Sarah
Christian, Danielle
Halcox, Julian
Audrey, Suzanne
Ellins, Elizabeth
Anderson, Samantha
Copp, Isabel
Brophy, Sinead
author_facet James, Michaela
Todd, Charlotte
Scott, Samantha
Stratton, Gareth
McCoubrey, Sarah
Christian, Danielle
Halcox, Julian
Audrey, Suzanne
Ellins, Elizabeth
Anderson, Samantha
Copp, Isabel
Brophy, Sinead
author_sort James, Michaela
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: It is recommended that young people should engage in 60 min of moderate-to-vigorous activity (MVPA) a day for health benefits, but few teenagers actually meet this recommendation. Policy-makers play a vital role in designing physical activity initiatives, but they generally do this with little or no input from the intervention recipients. This study explores the recommendations made by teenagers to improve activity provision, uptake and sustainability of physical activity engagement for both themselves and their peers. METHODS: Thirteen focus groups were carried out in seven secondary schools in South Wales, United Kingdom. Participants (n = 78) were recruited from a larger mixed-method randomised control trial, which involved the implementation of a voucher scheme to promote physical activity in teenagers (aged 13–14). Thematic analysis was undertaken to identify key issues from the perspective of the teenage participants. RESULTS: Six key recommendations were identified following analysis of the focus groups: i) Lower/remove the cost of activities without sacrificing the quality, ii) Make physical activity opportunities more locally accessible, iii) Improve the standards of existing facilities, iv) Make activities more specific to teenagers v) Give teenagers a choice of activities/increase variety of activity and vi) Provide activities that teenage girls enjoy (e.g., fun, sociable and not competitive sport). Throughout the focus groups, the increased opportunity to participate in unstructured activity was a key recommendation echoed by both boys and girls in all themes. CONCLUSION: There is a disconnect between what is available and what teenagers want to do. Policy-makers and those involved in physical activity delivery (e.g., schools, local council and local activity providers) should include young people in designing interventions and facilities to ensure they are meeting the needs of this age group and providing the right opportunities for teenagers to be active. That is unstructured, local, low cost, fun, sociable opportunities and the right facilities to be active. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-018-5274-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-58593892018-03-20 Teenage recommendations to improve physical activity for their age group: a qualitative study James, Michaela Todd, Charlotte Scott, Samantha Stratton, Gareth McCoubrey, Sarah Christian, Danielle Halcox, Julian Audrey, Suzanne Ellins, Elizabeth Anderson, Samantha Copp, Isabel Brophy, Sinead BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: It is recommended that young people should engage in 60 min of moderate-to-vigorous activity (MVPA) a day for health benefits, but few teenagers actually meet this recommendation. Policy-makers play a vital role in designing physical activity initiatives, but they generally do this with little or no input from the intervention recipients. This study explores the recommendations made by teenagers to improve activity provision, uptake and sustainability of physical activity engagement for both themselves and their peers. METHODS: Thirteen focus groups were carried out in seven secondary schools in South Wales, United Kingdom. Participants (n = 78) were recruited from a larger mixed-method randomised control trial, which involved the implementation of a voucher scheme to promote physical activity in teenagers (aged 13–14). Thematic analysis was undertaken to identify key issues from the perspective of the teenage participants. RESULTS: Six key recommendations were identified following analysis of the focus groups: i) Lower/remove the cost of activities without sacrificing the quality, ii) Make physical activity opportunities more locally accessible, iii) Improve the standards of existing facilities, iv) Make activities more specific to teenagers v) Give teenagers a choice of activities/increase variety of activity and vi) Provide activities that teenage girls enjoy (e.g., fun, sociable and not competitive sport). Throughout the focus groups, the increased opportunity to participate in unstructured activity was a key recommendation echoed by both boys and girls in all themes. CONCLUSION: There is a disconnect between what is available and what teenagers want to do. Policy-makers and those involved in physical activity delivery (e.g., schools, local council and local activity providers) should include young people in designing interventions and facilities to ensure they are meeting the needs of this age group and providing the right opportunities for teenagers to be active. That is unstructured, local, low cost, fun, sociable opportunities and the right facilities to be active. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-018-5274-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2018-03-20 /pmc/articles/PMC5859389/ /pubmed/29558987 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-5274-3 Text en © The Author(s). 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
James, Michaela
Todd, Charlotte
Scott, Samantha
Stratton, Gareth
McCoubrey, Sarah
Christian, Danielle
Halcox, Julian
Audrey, Suzanne
Ellins, Elizabeth
Anderson, Samantha
Copp, Isabel
Brophy, Sinead
Teenage recommendations to improve physical activity for their age group: a qualitative study
title Teenage recommendations to improve physical activity for their age group: a qualitative study
title_full Teenage recommendations to improve physical activity for their age group: a qualitative study
title_fullStr Teenage recommendations to improve physical activity for their age group: a qualitative study
title_full_unstemmed Teenage recommendations to improve physical activity for their age group: a qualitative study
title_short Teenage recommendations to improve physical activity for their age group: a qualitative study
title_sort teenage recommendations to improve physical activity for their age group: a qualitative study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5859389/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29558987
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-5274-3
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