Year: 2020
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: To achieve a healthy lifestyle, adolescents must be physically active and meet physical activity (PA) guidelines. One of the most natural ways of increasing the amount of PA is active commuting (AC) to school. Recent reviews suggest that peer norms have the potential to shape PA during adolescence in particular. Thus, our primary aim was to investigate whether Czech adolescents misperceive their peers' AC behaviors and attitudes towards AC. Our dataset comprised cross-sectional data on 1586 adolescents aged 11-15 years. Basic descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and correlation analyses were used to analyze the data. Regarding traveling to school, 68% of the Czech adolescents in this study are daily active commuters (walking, cycling, or riding a scooter or skateboard). Less than half of the respondents believed that most of their classmates were commuting to school actively almost daily. The students who believed that most of their classmates commuted to school actively had significantly higher chances of being regular active commuters themselves. The results showed that most of the Czech adolescents misperceived the AC norms of their peers. Thus, there could be potential in using a social norms approach aimed at increasing the level of AC in Czech adolescents through targeted interventions.
Language: English
Subfield: Transportation
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,429
Awards: Primary prevention of sedentary behaviour and promotion of school-based physical activity based on social norms and social marketing approach and use elements of e-health/m-health systems, Social Norms Intervention in the prevention of excessive sitting and physical activity promotion among Czech adolescents, G7855632153, G8550270144
OpenAlex ID: W3046571374