“Let Kids be Kids” – A Review of Current Evidence on the Factors Engaging and Disengaging Adolescents

in Regular Physical Activity

Elizabeth Madlinger

HLTH 634

July 13, 2019

Introduction

Due to the increasing number of inactive individuals in the nation, the Physical Activity
Guidelines for Americans (PAG) published a set of guidelines for physical activity.1 It has been reported
by the Healthy People 2020 campaign that “more than 80% of adolescents do not do enough aerobic
physical activity to meet the guidelines for youth.”1These guidelines were created in hopes to promote
healthy behaviors to the public. While it is believed that most people understand the importance of
making healthy behavior choices and engaging in physical activity, few actually engage in these
behaviors. The purpose of this review is to summarize the current evidence on a school – based
intervention involving adolescent students in York County, South Carolina. The campaign “Let Kids be
Kids” was created to promote and educate adolescent students on the importance of engaging in
regular physical activity. This intervention is needed because the lack of physical activity in the
adolescents on the world today can escalade to produce a generation of unhealthy, chronically ill
adults.2 It has been reported by different sources that physical activity levels decrease as individuals
age.3,4,5A few studies show that the decrease in activity levels of individuals is more prevalent in
adolescents transitioning from middle to high school.3This intervention will target adolescents in middle
schools in order to present information and guidance on how to incorporate more physical activity into
their daily lives and how to continue this habit as they approach different transitional periods in their
lives.

The intervention “Let Kids be Kids” will be a school-based intervention with a multi-dimensional
reach to the community and families of the participants. It will take place over the course of an entire
school year and will heavily incorporate the administration and staff of the schools that are
participating. The program will be implemented into the physical education classes of 4 local middle
schools in York County, SC. Since all students are required to take physical education classes, this
intervention will reach all of the students enrolled in these schools. The physical education teachers will
still teach these classes however, they will be implementing an additional educational component,
following a structured lesson plan that includes requirements set forth by the school district regulations,
and they will be provided training on how to positively and effectively communicate the information to
their students.

This review will provide a body of evidence which will show the need for an intervention such as
this for the target audience of adolescent students. The findings from different reviews and case studies
will be grouped and summarized to show how their findings provide evidence to the need for a new
approach to reaching this critical age group of individuals. The body of evidence portion will be followed
by a summary portion and a conclusion. The summary portion will summarize the main findings
contributing to the need for an increase in adolescent health and the conclusion portion will examine
the overall findings from this review. The resources included in this review were those which examined
diverse groups of participants in the same age group as the target population. These resources were also
limited to those which are at least 8 years old and include participants of both genders.

Body of Evidence

This review looked at many different forms of research before being conducted. The resources
included in the framework behind the “Let Kids be Kids” campaign included other reviews and case-
studies related to the facilitators and barriers or physical activity in adolescents. While many different
resources were analyzed, there were guidelines to the resources that would be included.
 The review studies that were used looked at different factors which are associated with
adolescents participating in physical activity. These reports looked at the individuals’ attitudes toward
physical activity, their motivation levels and sources, their perceptions of competence and body image,
their influences for positive or negative physical activity behavior, their family support, and the effects
of their environment. These reviews also highlight the effect of transitional periods in the lives of
individuals and how these are the key moments when individuals tend to move away from behaviors
that they were otherwise engaging in. Many of these reviews pointed out facilitators and barriers that
adolescents report as to why they do or do not participate in enough physical activity. These reviews
included studies that involved individuals of different ethnicities, gender and socioeconomic
background.3,5These reviews were also consistent with presenting the importance of positive
encouragement in their social lives.5,10,11The studies that reported on the psychosocial effects of the
participants pointed out the large number of non-active adolescents who reported lack of
encouragement from leadership as a reason behind their lack of motivation.4,5,10

The case-studies that were used in designing this intervention included those which analyzed
the effects of physical activity on adolescents as well as those which evaluated responses provided by
participants on their attitudes and motivation behind whether they are physically active or not. One
longitudinal study that was included in these resources looked at the socioecological factors that are
potentially associated with participation in physical activity and sports in adolescents.4While this study
did focus on the factors effecting adolescent girls, another similar study examined factors similar to the
factors presented, yet it included findings from adolescent girls and boys and saw no significant change
between their data trends.3The longitudinal study that was analyzed reported that girls were less active
due to intrapersonal barriers such as having a lack of energy or time, interpersonal factors associated
with family and peer support, and environmental/organizational factors such as access, opportunity, and
resources. This article also pointed out as did a few other reports that were included in this review, that
as adolescents mature, their priorities change and they tend to become less physically active.4,5,6

Summary

In summary, the articles examined for this review were only used if they contained information
and data that would be relevant to understanding the need for the “Let Kids be Kids” campaign. The
different review articles however were used in the development of the program. It was noticed during
the analysis of the resources, that the built environment that the participant are exposed to can be a large
contributing factor to whether they decide to engage in regular physical activity or not. From the relatively
consistent findings obtained from the different resources, it was decided that the campaign “Let Kids be
Kids” would be designed and implemented to serve all adolescents in York County, South Carolina
however, it would be more specifically designed to target those adolescents who are not getting enough
daily physical activity and who have negative feelings and poor attitudes about trying to get the
recommended 60 minutes of moderate to high intensity physical activity. The intervention will be more
focused at this subset of the target audience because they are the group that is more at risk for continuing
the negative behaviors that they are participating in now. While all of the resources included in this review
were slightly different either by what they analyzed, who they analyzed and how they analyzed them, one
common theme was noted across all of the resources and that is that physical activity is essential for the
development and psychological growth of children and adolescents 2-10
Conclusion

The resources included in this review were consistent in their ideas for a needed multi-level
intervention approach to the issue of adolescent inactivity. There were a few studies that reported on
the participants’ responses to questions about the encouragement and motivation they receive from
different adults in their lives.5,10,11Many participants that reported being non active before the
intervention also responded to these questions saying they receive poor or no motivation and
encouragement from adults in their lives to engage in physical activity on a regular basis. These non-
active children also responded to questionnaires that they did not have positive attitudes towards
sports in the physical education classes because they did not feel comfortable with the competitive
nature and they did not feel that their teachers provided them with encouragement that would
motivate them to participate.10,11The differences in these reports were primarily seen in the process by
which researchers obtained their information and data. The specific factors that were studied about the
participants did vary slightly between the different studies that were used in this review however, some
of these factors overlapped in their conclusions. While the substance of each of the resources used may
differ in details, they all produce a similar conclusion that interventions directed at adolescents need to
be multi-dimensional and they need to include objectives which increase the self-efficacy of the
participants and positively affect their perception of regular physical activity.4,6,7 As the population ages
and more and more people become ill with chronic ailments, it is clear that something has to be done so
that our future generations do not end up the same way. Using a school-based approach and
incorporating the cooperation of school staff as well as the families of the children, this intervention will
be another step in looking for an effective intervention to increase the number of children that engage
in the recommended minutes of regular physical activity and strength training every day.

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