Physical Activity Level and Well-Being: Youth Living in Rural Areas

Background/Purpose: Substantial evidence exists for the benefits of being physically active on physical health and psychological well-being of adult populations (Hardman & Stensel, 2003: Biddle, Fox, & Boutcher, 2000).  Evidence for the benefits of physical activity on the physical health and psychological well-being of secondary school youth living in rural areas is limited.  Therefore, the purpose of this preliminary study was to explore the relationship between physical activity (PA) and psychological well-being in secondary school youth from rural areas. 

Method: Participants were 43 male and 47 female secondary-school youth (average ± SD): age, weight, height, BMI, 13.51±1.57 y, 92.70±36.55 kg, 161.65±9.25 cm, 35.68±14.29 kg/m², respectively. Participants wore a sealed pedometer (New Lifestyles NL-1000) for 7 days to measure PA (i.e., steps/day).  Participants also completed the 18-item Ryff Scale of Psychological Well-Being (SPWB, Ryff, 1995), that assesses 6 dimensions of wellness, including autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, purpose in life, and self-acceptance by combining 3 six-point Likert-type responses (i.e., agree strongly to strongly disagree) for each dimension of wellness. The higher the score (maximum 18) is, the better that dimension of wellness.  Reliability of the Ryff’s SPWB ranges from 0.33 to 0.56 and stability over time ranges from 0.81 to 0.88 (Ryff, 1989; Ryff & Keyes, 1995).  Parents of the participants also completed a questionnaire asking about the parental income, educational, and activity levels.

Analysis/Results: Only 6 participants were classified as active using daily pedometer step criteria (Tudor-Locke et al., 2004). Regardless, independent t-tests were run for each of the 6 dimensions of wellness between the active and non-active groups, yet no significance was found (p > 0.05).  The largest difference was found for self-acceptance (2.37 points), with the active group having a score of 15.5 and non-active group 13.1 (p = 0.086).  However, parents who reported being active for at least 20 minutes, most days of the week had youth with a higher score for personal growth than those parents who reported being sedentary (14.65 versus 11.92, p = 0.011). No other differences were found in the wellness scores.

Conclusions: This preliminary study revealed that there was no significant relationship between the participants’ PA level and psychological well-being.  However, those with more active parents showed a higher score for personal growth.  Future studies with more participants may detect main effects on the relationship between PA and psychological well-being variables.