Association between the physical activity level and perceived barriers in students of southern Brazil

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the relationship between the Physical Activity Level and the perceived barriers for physical activity among High School Students.

Method: The study included 348 students, aged between 14 and 18 years. The IPAQ-short version was used for physical activity level information, and to investigate the perceived barriers, an questionnaire validated for adolescents was applied.

Results: From all the students, 58.6% were considered active and the most prevalent perceived barriers were “many tasks”, “lack of time” and “difficulty caused by the weather”. Girls reported greater number and frequencies of all barriers investigated. There was a significant negative correlation (p<0.0001) between physical activity level and perceived barriers.

Conclusions: The findings of this study showed the impact that the perception of barriers has on physical activity, showing that the greater the number of barriers perceived by the students, the lower is their physical activity level.