The Relationship between Affective Response to Exercise and Activity Level among Children

Abstract

Childhood obesity is a health epidemic in the United States. There have been many interventions designed to prevent and treat childhood obesity, but these programs have seen only moderate success. Exercise enjoyment influences children's physical activity, but little is known about obese children's enjoyment of exercise. The present study evaluated exercise enjoyment and subsequent physical activity among an ethnically diverse sample of children (n=25) participating in an 11-week obesity intervention. It was hypothesized that children would engage in progressively more physical activity over the course of the intervention and that their enjoyment of exercise would predict improvements in physical activity. Additional hypotheses were that 1) ethnicity, age, and BMI would influence both enjoyment and physical activity levels, and 2) reported hope would increase. Results showed the children engaged in less physical activity and reported lower exercise enjoyment over the 11-week intervention. African-American children were most active and Hispanic children were least active. Older children enjoyed exercise less and were less active than their younger counterparts. Reported hope showed a non-significant trend toward increasing. Pathways beliefs increased significantly but agency beliefs showed no change. Replicating the present study to better understand exercise enjoyment and hope among children who are obese could lead to more effective, targeted interventions.