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Differences in Percieved Barriers to Exercise Between Younger (20 to 27 years) and Older (28 to 35 years) Non-exercising Adult Women in the UK
Conference poster

Differences in Percieved Barriers to Exercise Between Younger (20 to 27 years) and Older (28 to 35 years) Non-exercising Adult Women in the UK

Geoff Lovell, B Pettifier and M Wicks
Proceedings of the 12th Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science
Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS), 12th (Jyväskylä, Finland, 11-Jul-2007–14-Jul-2007)
European College of Sport Science
2007
url
https://ecss2007.cc.jyu.fi/schedule/proceedings/pdf/1414.pdfView
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Abstract

Human Movement and Sports Science Psychology non-exercising adults exercise barriers
Obesity and physical activity (PA) levels are both important health issues amongst young women. The incidence of obesity in young adult women within the UK is increasing; in 2002 22.8% of adult women were classed as clinically obese (Sproston and Primatesta, 2003), a number which has increased threefold since 1980. According to authors such as Zunft et al. (1999), the long term success of strategies to increase physical activity in adult women have been insufficient and in order to develop successful health strategies, it is necessary to further investigate their motives for PA and their challenges faced in attempting to be active. As relationships between barriers to exercise and age have been reported (e.g., Zunft et al., 1999), it would appear that the rationale for an investigation subdividing the female adult age group of 20 to 35 years to gain a more detailed understanding of associated barriers to exercise would be well justified. The aim of this study therefore, was to compare via t-test exercise barrier intensity between 50 non-exercising younger adult women (20 to 27 years of age) and 50 non-exercising older adult women (28 to 35 years of age using the Exercise Benefits / Barriers Scale (EBBS, Sechrist, Walker, Pender, 1987). The first level of analysis demonstrated a that the older women had a significantly higher total perceived barrier to exercise score (mean = 31.7, SD = 6.3) than the younger women (mean = 28.4, SD = 6.6), t(98) = 2.62, p < 0.01. Justified by the significant total EBBS result, the second level of analysis demonstrated the older females to have significantly higher barrier scores for the subscales of exercise milieu t(98) = 2.12, p < 0.05, time expenditure t(98) = 2.90, p < 0.01, and family discouragement t(98) = 2.16, p < 0.05, but no significant difference between physical exertion scores t(98) = 0.676, p = 0.53. Subsequent examination of the data demonstrated an additional interesting trend between EBBS scores and participant?s number of children. To assess this relationship a bivariate Pearsons correlation was calculated between total EBBS scores and participant's number of children. This correlation analysis demonstrated a significant relationship, r = 0.56, p < 0.001, where participant's number of children explained 30.9% of the variance of the women's total perceived barrier to exercise. Conclusions from this investigation include that nonexercising older women adults between 28 and 35 years of age have higher exercise barrier intensities than younger non-exercising women between 20 and 27 years of age, yet issues surrounding childcare may be shared between these groups and require further research and policy attention.

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