Commercial venues as supports for physical activity in adolescent girls

Abstract

Objective-The purposes of this study were to describe the types and availability of commercial facilities for physical activity (PA) in six diverse geographic areas (Washington DC and Maryland; South Carolina; Minnesota; Louisiana; Arizona; and California) and to assess the relationship between those facilities and the non-school PA of adolescent girls.Methods-A total of 1556 6th grade girls participating in the Trial of Activity for Adolescent Girls (TAAG) wore accelerometers for 7 days providing 6 days of complete data, completed questionnaires in 2003 and had their residential addresses geocoded. Nearby commercial facilities available to provide PA (i.e. dance studios, youth organizations) within a 1-mile radius of participants' residences were identified and geocoded. The association between the presence of any commercial PA facility and girls' PA was determined using a multi-level design and controlling for demographic characteristics and other potential confounders. Analyses were conducted in 2005-2006. Results-Sixty-eight percent of the girls had at least one commercial PA facility near their homes. Availability and types of commercial PA facilities differed by where participants lived. Girls who lived near one or more commercial PA facilities had higher non-school MET-weighted moderateto-vigorous PA than girls who had none near their homes.Conclusions-The findings suggest that commercial PA facilities are important contributors to the accumulation of PA among adolescent girls.

A Quantitative Examination of Park Characteristics Related to Park Use and Physical Activity Among Urban Youth

“…Our finding that objectively measured park availability was not associated with either park use or physical activity is inconsistent with several studies demonstrating positive associations between availability and adolescent physical activity [6,7,[9][10][11][12][13]. There are, however, studies that did not find an association [3,8] or found differences by gender [9,11,13].…”

“…Evidence from studies using measures of perceived facility availability is mixed, with some finding positive associations [1][2][3] and others finding no associations [4,5]. The majority of work in this area, however, utilizes objective measures of facility availability and provides strong evidence indicating that a greater availability of recreational facilities is positively associated with adolescents' physical activity levels [3,[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13].…”

Commercial Facilities, Social Cognitive Variables, and Physical Activity of 12th Grade Girls

“…Findings from the present investigation are consistent with several recent studies [13,35,39,40] that used GIS methods to examine the relationship between PA facilities and adolescents' PA. For example, Gorden-Larsen et al [39] reported that the relative odds of achieving five or more bouts of MVPA per week were increased when adolescents had one or more commercial PA facilities within a 8.07-km buffer around their residence as compared to adolescents with zero facilities. Powell et al [40] reported that number of commercial physical activity-related facilities increased frequent VPA by 9.0% in 12th girls.…”

“…In the present study, there is a positive significant correlation between perceived facility access and multipurpose PA facilities (Table 4) in the SEM model. In adults [33,34] and sixth grade girls [35], access to objectively measured facilities was significantly related to PA even after controlling for selected personal and social variables.…”

Perception of the social and built environment and physical activity among Northeastern Brazil adolescents

“…Studies with adolescents have shown a positive correlation between presence and proximity of such facilities and physical activity levels (Norman et al, 2006;Dowda et al, 2007;Pate et al, 2008;Tucker et al, 2009). …”