Acta Universitatis Carolinae: Kinanthropologica (Dec 2016)

Individual, social and environmental predictors of physical activity in severe to morbid obese African American adolescents

  • Jeffrey J. Martin,
  • Kathryn Brogan-Hartlieb,
  • Angela J. Jacques-Tiura,
  • Sylvie Naar-King,
  • Deborah A. Ellis,
  • Kai-Lin Catherine Jen

DOI
https://doi.org/10.14712/23366052.2016.7
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 52, no. 2
pp. 5 – 18

Abstract

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The purpose of this study was to predict low, moderate, hard and very hard physical activity (PA) and walking/biking/jogging based PA. One-hundred and fifty-nine severe to morbid obese African-American adolescents participated. We predicted 8% of the variance in hard PA largely due to family support and 10% of the variance in very hard PA due to other support (e.g. counselor) and having home PA equipment. We also predicted 10% of the variance in walking/biking/jogging due to the walkability of the neighborhood. Our findings support the value of social support and environmental supports in helping obese African American adolescents increase PA.

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