The Relationship between Affective Response to Exercise and Activity Level among Children
Issue Date
2010-04-08Author
Gallagher, Katherine Anne Steiger
Publisher
University of Kansas
Format
68 pages
Type
Dissertation
Degree Level
Ph.D.
Discipline
Psychology
Rights
This item is protected by copyright and unless otherwise specified the copyright of this thesis/dissertation is held by the author.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
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.
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- Psychology Dissertations and Theses [459]
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