TY - JOUR
T1 - Physical activity and social network use of adolescents in overweight and obesity treatment
AU - Wulff, Hagen
AU - Duan, Yanping
AU - Wagner, Petra
N1 - Funding Information:
We acknowledge support from Leipzig University for Open Access Publishing.
We would like to thank all participants, all obesity treatment centres, as well as the “Konsensgruppe Adipositasschulung für Kinder und Jugendliche e.V. (KgAS)” for their constructive and invaluable support. This research did not receive any grants from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2021/7/1
Y1 - 2021/7/1
N2 - Tackling obesity among adolescents requires the optimization of existing obesity treatment strategies. For this purpose, social and personal circumstances, individual needs and behavior of therapy participants need to be analyzed to tailor aims, content and methods of therapy interventions to the target groups. A total of 432 obesity therapy participants between 11 and 17 years completed a written survey in a national multi-center study conducted in 2015. The data collection on behavior, in terms of physical activity, media use and sociodemographic variables, was based on questionnaires from the KiGGS, HBSC and JIM studies. The results show that participants were found to be physically active together with friends (75.5%), alone (41.4%) and in sports clubs (34.9%). Girls (OR 1.55) were less likely to participate in sports clubs. Social networks, especially YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, were widely used. However, differences emerged among sociodemographic groups (e.g., boys vs. girls) regarding the use of social network features. A third of participants reported that smartphone apps regularly encouraged them to exercise. The findings imply that obesity therapy approaches need to be adapted and more differentiated according to the specific needs of the target groups.
AB - Tackling obesity among adolescents requires the optimization of existing obesity treatment strategies. For this purpose, social and personal circumstances, individual needs and behavior of therapy participants need to be analyzed to tailor aims, content and methods of therapy interventions to the target groups. A total of 432 obesity therapy participants between 11 and 17 years completed a written survey in a national multi-center study conducted in 2015. The data collection on behavior, in terms of physical activity, media use and sociodemographic variables, was based on questionnaires from the KiGGS, HBSC and JIM studies. The results show that participants were found to be physically active together with friends (75.5%), alone (41.4%) and in sports clubs (34.9%). Girls (OR 1.55) were less likely to participate in sports clubs. Social networks, especially YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, were widely used. However, differences emerged among sociodemographic groups (e.g., boys vs. girls) regarding the use of social network features. A third of participants reported that smartphone apps regularly encouraged them to exercise. The findings imply that obesity therapy approaches need to be adapted and more differentiated according to the specific needs of the target groups.
KW - Children and adolescents
KW - Obesity and overweight
KW - Physical activity
KW - Social media
KW - Social networks
KW - Sociodemographic factors
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85108692775&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/ijerph18136938
DO - 10.3390/ijerph18136938
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 34203513
AN - SCOPUS:85108692775
SN - 1661-7827
VL - 18
JO - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
JF - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
IS - 13
M1 - 6938
ER -
