Purpose: Young people’s physical activity (PA) declines in adolescence, especially amongst girls. Action sports (e.g. mountain biking, skateboarding, surfing) are male dominated and under-explored as a pathway to improve girls’ PA. Social support is positively correlated with PA but how social support is operationalized in action sports is unclear. This study aimed to explore and compare the social support needs and experiences of girls and boys in action sports.

Methods: Forty-two Australian girls (n=25) and boys (n=17) aged 12-18 years old (mean age 14 years) who were current, past or potential participants in mountain biking, skateboarding and/or surfing, were individually interviewed (telephone/skype) in 2018 or 2020. A socio-ecological framework guided the semi-structured discussion schedule. Audio-recordings were transcribed verbatim and data analysed thematically.

Results: Social support appeared highly influential in young people’s desire or opportunity to engage in and continue with action sports. Parents, peers and siblings were the most common providers of social support with extended family (e.g. grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins) and wider social networks (e.g. family friends, community members, coaches, teachers) also notable. Lack of family or peers as social support providers was a common reason for no or discontinued engagement in action sports. Participation (current, past or co-participation) were the strongest social support types followed by emotional (e.g. encouragement), instrumental (e.g. transport, equipment/funding) and informational (e.g. coaching tips) support. Gendered differences included: girls were inspired by their brother’s participation in action sports, but boys were not inspired by sisters; boys and girls co-participated with parents but co-participating with dads and being inspired by dads was most common especially amongst girls; dads were more likely the main provider of transport if they co-participated with their child; dads most commonly provided initial coaching; boys were taught equipment maintenance by parents.

Conclusions: These data highlight the numerous social support providers and the variety of ways social support can influence action sport participation. Gendered differences in social support emphasise that intervention strategies should be tailored in pursuit of equal opportunity for all genders to participate in action sports and PA generally.

Purpose: High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is a form of vigorous physical activity requiring high effort. The purpose of this study was to examine how projecting heart rate monitor data on to a screen acutely affected exercise intensity during a HIIT session for young adolescents in a school setting.

Methods: Twenty students (12.3土0.9 years, Male=8, Female=12) from one school volunteered to participate. Using a randomized cross-over design within a 4-week period, participants completed four sessions of HIIT with heart rate projection and four sessions of HIIT with no projection. Two teachers were provided with a professional learning session to then deliver the 8–10-minute HIIT sessions in class. Participants wore heart rate monitors (Polar H10™, Finland) for all sessions. Peak session heart rate, expressed as beats per minute (BPM), and % session time above 90% heart rate maximum were collected in all sessions. Focus group interviews were conducted to gain perceptions around the effects of the projection on motivation and effort levels. Heart rate data were analysed using a repeated measure mixed model analysis of variance with a compound symmetry covariance structure. Data are median (interquartile range).

Results: Peak heart rate during the projection condition [186.8 (2.15) BPM] was significantly greater (p=0.011) than non-projection condition [181.5 (2.16) BPM]. Percent of session time above 90% of maximum heart rate was significantly greater (p=0.002) for the projection condition [23.9 (5.2)%] than non-projection [14.4 (5.2)%]. Projection improved student motivation to reach the target, and ignited competition amongst peers to work harder. Teachers noted students appeared more motivated during the projection condition.

Conclusion: Projecting heart data onto a screen in a school class setting increases the acute exercise intensity of students during teacher delivered HIIT, therefore providing an effective way to enhance participation in high effort exercise and contribute to vigorous activity participation in schools.

Purpose: Countries are implementing restrictions on unhealthy food marketing to children, informed by evidence that “child-directed” marketing strategies (e.g., cartoons) elicit positive affect in children, which transfers to the ad and brand and impacts children’s food choices. However, children are more exposed to general audience marketing featuring universal emotional appeals, like friendship and fun, which are attractive across ages. This study examined how sugar-sweetened-soda (SSS) ads with child- vs. non-child-directed appeals influence children's beverage choices through attitude change.

Methods: In an online randomized between-subjects experiment (N=546), children 11-12yo were randomly exposed to one of three SSS ads (child- or non-child-directed emotional ad or non-targeted product appeal) or no ad (control). Outcomes included the number of times children chose a soda (0-8) or bottled water (0-5) over another beverage across eight and five dichotomous choices, respectively. Children's attitudes toward the ad and product (I like it: 0 to I hate it:4) were tested as serial mediators predicting each outcome (soda, water). Linear regressions with bootstrapping were used to examine indirect effects. The study was conducted in Chile, given Chile´s comprehensive set of food marketing regulations, which includes restricting "child-directed" strategies promoting products high in calories, sugars, saturated fats, and sodium.

Results: Children’s exposure to universal emotional appeals indirectly increased preferences for sodas vs. non-sodas (R² = .18, F(4,411) = 23.18, p < .001) and decreased preferences for bottled water over other beverages (R² = .13, F(4,411) = 15.23, p < .001) by first enhancing attitudes toward the ad, then product. Both ads with emotional appeals indirectly increased soda preferences (Boot-B = .35, Boot-SE = .11, 95%CI: .16, .58), and decreased water preferences (Boot-B = -.17, Boot-SE = .06, 95%CI: -.29, -.07), compared to the product-focused ad. No significant differences were found between child- and non-child-directed emotional appeal ads on preferences.

Conclusion: Restricting only child-directed strategies may be insufficient protection from food marketing influences, as universal emotional appeals, rather than child-directed strategies, drove the advertising effects on children in this study. Further, soda ads using emotional appeals may increase soda preferences and also decrease preferences for healthier beverages, like water.

Purpose: Parents are important social agents to promote physical activity for their children. Current knowledge of physical activity parenting practices (PAPP) is predominantly generated from western cultures and for young children, its generalizability to other cultures and adolescents is questionable. This study aimed to qualitatively investigate experiences, perceptions, and barriers to PAPP for Chinese early adolescents.

Methods: Twenty-nine boy-parent dyads and 26 girl-parent dyads participated in 16 matched focus group interviews, and additional 70 boy-parent dyads and 53 girl-parent dyads completed 246 matched open-ended questionnaires. Participants were conveniently recruited from Grade 7 in three public middle schools. Oral and written responses were transcribed verbatim in simplified Chinese and were analyzed inductively with open coding techniques by two researchers using NVivo 12. Discrepancies were assessed using the between-coder comparison function and resolved jointly.  

Results: We identified 18 PAPP and grouped them into 6 categories. They were related to 1) goal & control (setting expectations, pressuring, neglect, and restriction), 2) structure (scheduling, monitoring, supervision), 3) parental PA participation (co-participation, disengagement, positive and negative modeling), 4) communication (positive and negative), 5) support (tangible, peer, informational), and 6) discipline (reward, punishment). Participants expressed mixed perceptions towards the effects of these PAPP except for neglect, restriction, disengagement, positive and negative modeling, positive communication, and information support. They also identified parental, child, and environmental factors as barriers for parents to promote adolescent PA. These barriers are related to constrains of time, finance, safety, and facility accessibility, and the lack of PA knowledge, skill, and interests, as well as parenting issues including low parenting self-efficacy, having communication difficulties, unable to develop adolescent PA interests, and adolescent being rebellious and uncooperative.

Conclusions: Even though the variety of PAPP for Chinese early adolescents appears to be similar to PAPP for children from western countries, Chinese parents tend to adopt unfavorable PAPP that are saliant in a culture prone to authoritarian parenting. Besides focusing on PA attitudes, skills and physical environment, future studies need to address parenting challenges that become evident during adolescence.  

Purpose: The Active-to-Sedentary Transition Probability (ASTP) is a marker of fragmented physical activity (PA) that differentiates between people’s physical capabilities by focusing on the number of transitions between active and inactive states. In older adults ASTP may have greater utility than traditional PA metrics (e.g., total PA, moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA)). Children and adolescents have superior physical functioning than older adults, but often differ in motor competence. We examined whether ASTP might provide insights into youth movement capabilities that are not captured by other metrics by analysing relationships between ASTP and motor competence.

Methods: Accelerometers were worn for 7-days by 264 youth (age 11.5 ± 1.4 years; 139 girls) and ASTP was calculated. The Dragon Challenge (DC) motor competence assessment was also completed. Motor competence levels were determined using DC scores (technique, outcome, time, and overall) and the DC Gold/Platinum (most competent), Silver, and Bronze Award (least competent) categories. Differences between ASTP tertiles and DC scores, and associations between ASTP tertiles and DC award categories were analysed with adjustment for sex, maturation, socio-economic status, and school type. Sensitivity analyses were conducted replacing ASTP with more established PA metrics (MVPA, average acceleration (AvAcc), and intensity gradient (IG)).

Results: Youth in the highest ASTP tertile had significantly lower DC outcome (p=.01) and overall scores (p=.03). For MVPA, AvAcc, and IG all DC scores were significantly higher among the more active, compared to less active youth (p=.04 to <.001). The lowest ASTP tertile youth were 64% less likely to be in the Bronze or Silver DC categories, than highest ASTP tertile peers (p=.02). In comparison, the odds of being in the Bronze DC category were 2.5 to 8 times greater for youth in the lowest MVPA, AvAcc, and IG tertiles than those in the highest tertiles (p<.001).

Conclusions: Higher ASTP values corresponded with lower DC motor competence scores. However, when MVPA, AvAcc, and IG were used the differences in motor competence were more consistent and positive associations with DC award categories were stronger. Overall, in youth, established PA metrics were better able to differentiate between levels of motor competence than ASTP.