Correlates of physical activity in a national sample of girls and boys in Grades 4 through 12.

James F. Sallis, Judith J. Prochaska, Wendell C. Taylor, James O. Hill, John Geraci·1999·Health Psychology
DOI 10.1037//0278-6133.18.4.410

Abstract

Psychological, biological, social, and physical environmental variables were examined for their association with physical activity of young people. A national sample of 1,504 parents and children in Grades 4-12 were interviewed by telephone. Twenty-two potential determinants were assessed along with an 11-item child physical activity index (alpha = .76). Hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted separately for 6 age-sex subgroups. Percentage of variance explained ranged from 18% for boys in Grades 4-6 to 59% for girls in Grades 10-12. Three variables had strong and consistent associations with the child physical activity index that generalized across subgroups: use of afternoon time for sports and physical activity, enjoyment of physical education, and family support for physical activity. These 3 variables should be targeted for change to promote physical activity in all groups of young people.

Cited by (15)

  1. A Brief Review on Correlates of Physical Activity and Sedentariness in Youth
    VAN DER HORST, KLAZINE, PAW, MARIJKE J. CHIN A., TWISK, JOS W. R., VAN MECHELEN, WILLEM · 2007 · Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise
  2. Environmental correlates of physical activity in youth – a review and update
    Ferreira, I., Van Der Horst, K., Wendel‐Vos, W., Kremers, S., Van Lenthe, F. J., Brug, J. · 2007 · Obesity Reviews
  3. Evaluating a model of parental influence on youth physical activity
    Trost, Stewart G, Sallis, James F, Pate, Russell R, Freedson, Patty S, Taylor, Wendell C, Dowda, Marsha · 2003 · American Journal of Preventive Medicine
  4. Parental Social Support and the Physical Activity-Related Behaviors of Youth: A Review
    Beets, Michael W., Cardinal, Bradley J., Alderman, Brandon L. · 2010 · Health Education & Behavior
  5. Parental influences on different types and intensities of physical activity in youth: A systematic review
    Edwardson, Charlotte L., Gorely, Trish · 2010 · Psychology of Sport and Exercise

See all 413

How to cite

Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.

This page
CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Correlates of physical activity in a national sample of girls and boys in Grades 4 through 12. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1037//0278-6133.18.4.410
The paper
Sallis, J. F., Prochaska, J. J., Taylor, W. C., Hill, J. O., & Geraci, J. (1999). Correlates of physical activity in a national sample of girls and boys in Grades 4 through 12. Health Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037//0278-6133.18.4.410

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.