Topic 1: Involving teenagers in decision-making
Often there is a disconnection between what is available and what teenagers want to do. Policy makers and those involved in physical activity provision (eg. schools, local councils and local activity providers) should involve young people in the design of interventions and facilities to ensure they meet the needs of this age group and provide teenagers with the right opportunities to be active.
These are unstructured, local, cheap, fun, social opportunities and real possibilities for activity.
Involving teens in the planning and implementation of physical activity initiatives in this way is essential to empowering teens to positively influence their own activity levels. Therefore, identifying and better understanding the recommendations and needs of teenagers would increase the legitimacy and feasibility of activity interventions. In particular, motivation is an important correlate and determinant of physical activity. The importance of identifying different types of motivation for activity cannot be underestimated, as this would help policymakers understand why teenagers choose to be active and tailor initiatives to that motivation. Self-determination theory emerged as a popular framework for studying motivation and physical activity, distinguishing between controlled motivation (eg, regulated by external control or guilt) and autonomous motivation (eg, regulated by pleasure) and personal values).
The recommendations given show that teenagers are autonomously motivated because, for example, they focus on the pleasure and personal value of spending money. This is positively associated with sustained health behaviors. Therefore, by addressing autonomous motivation, policy makers are more likely to promote physical activity behaviors that young people would value and sustain. Consequently, addressing accessibility, activity specificity, choice and enjoyment is essential to improving youth activity levels. There are also gender differences in interests. Girls place more emphasis on the aspect of enjoying the activity and the need to be active with friends. Girls also seem to be more disinterested in school physical education than boys. More girls are said to have had negative experiences with physical education, which reduce their interest and involvement in physical activity in their free time.
These findings suggest that providing a range of activities to choose from may have some effect on physical activity levels. Young people expect that they have a greater influence on the choice of sports activities in the local community and that these are more accessible to them. They offer testimonials that can be used as a guide for planning future interventions to increase youth activity. In particular, interventions must consider teenagers’ motivation for self-determination as a guiding principle in their development. They need to consider whether the group they are targeting is motivated in a controlled or autonomous way in order to be more effective. Therefore, the consultation phase could go a long way towards improving the physical activity of young people.
