Abstract

Emilia Rönnberg.

Barriers to physical activity in adolescents in their late teens. Vetenskaplig C- uppsats HT 12

Physical activity has been essential to human health and well-being since several thousand years. In Sweden, it has been shown that both adults and young people are less physically active than the rest of Europe- a large proportion of young people today do not meet the recommendations for physical activity (60 minutes per day). The purpose of this study was to determine what proportion of young people, i.e. high school students, did not meet the recommendations for physical activity. Another objective was to identify what barriers existed for performing physical activity. In this cross-sectional study, a quantitative method was used with surveys as tool. The results showed that 73 percent of young people did not meet the recommendations for physical activity. Of these, 70 percent were boys and 77 percent were girls. The main reported barriers for physical activity were lack of time, watching television and computer use,- and disinterest / uninspired. Some differences were found in perceived barriers between boys and girls-, for boys,- television and computer time were the biggest barrier, while for girls lack of time was their biggest barrier.