Environmental influences on physical activity among adolescents: studies on determinants and intervention strategies

This thesis aimed to answer two research questions: 1. How is the physical environment associated with PA behaviour among adolescents? 2. What are the effects of a computer-tailored intervention (YouRAction) that targets individual level factors and of a computer-tailored intervention that targets individual and environmental level factors on compliance with the MVPA guideline among Dutch adolescents? It was concluded that there is no evidence for a direct association between the objectively measured physical environment and PA among urban adolescents. However, even though there was no direct association between the physical environment and PA among adolescents, the physical environment was found to be an important factor in combination with social environmental or cognitive factors. When adolescents had a high intention or high level of NSC in combination with high availability of facilities, they were more likely to participate in sports or increase their sports participation. It was also concluded that the YouRAction and YouRAction+e interventions were not effective in increasing compliance to the MVPA guideline, which might be due to sub-optimal implementation of the intervention.

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