Participation in Physical Education Classes, Psychological Well-Being, and Sleep Satisfaction Among South Korean Adolescents

Abstract

PURPOSE: This study aimed to examine the associations between participation in physical education (PE) classes and the psychological well-being and sleep satisfaction of Korean adolescents.METHODS: Cross-sectional data from 127,804 Korean adolescents (aged 12–18 years) who participated in the 2016 and 2017 Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Surveys (KYRBS) were analyzed. The exploratory variable was the frequency of participation in PE classes every week, while the dependent variables included the psychological well-being and sleep satisfaction, as assessed by the KYRBS questionnaire. Sex- and grade-stratified logistic regression analyses were conducted to generate the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI).RESULTS: Overall 16.9% of adolescents reported that they did not participate in PE classes while 33.0% reported participating for more than three times a week. After adjusting for the academic achievements, family’s economic status, consumption frequency of breakfast and highly caffeinated drinks, and physical activity level, a greater participation in the PE classes was found to be associated with happiness in a dose-response fashion in both sexes and grades (p<.05). As for stress, participation in the PE classes for more than three times a week was associated with less/no stress in boys (OR: 1.16, 95% CI: 1.02–1.31, p<.05) and high school students (OR: 1.22, 95% CI: 1.03–1.44, p<.05). Moreover, greater participation in the PE classes was associated with a lower odds of reporting sleep satisfaction in a linear fashion among high school students.CONCLUSIONS: More frequent participation in PE classes was associated with the psychological well-being and sleep satisfaction in a large sample of Korean adolescents. Increasing the number of mandatory PE sessions is a promising strategy for promoting the psychological well-being of Korean adolescents.

Physical activity moderates the association between school start time and sleep duration in a cross-sectional national sample of adolescents

“…Specifically, as MVPA increases, the strength of association between SST and sleep duration weakens; one standard deviation increase in MVPA (sd = 28.83 min) was associated with approximately three minutes and twelve seconds of additionally nightly sleep when holding SST constant. Prior studies have identified associations between SST and sleep duration and their association with academic outcomes [36]; between physical education and subsequent sleep outcomes [37]; or have provided evidence from epidemiological studies pointing to regular physical activity as the most important sleep promoting behavior for the public [38]. The current study advances this literature and points to MVPA promotion as a promising strategy that may support adolescents' sleep achievement in the absence of changes to SST, despite the historical difficulty of increasing MVPA among adolescents.…”