Journal of Qualitative Research in Health Sciences

Authors

Abstract

Introduction: Despite the importance of physical activity and exercise for lifelong health,
involvement in physical activity declines during adolescence, particularly for girls. Identifying
barriers of physical activity habit helps researchers to design better and more effective
interventions for participation in exercise and physical activity. This study was designed to
explore barriers of physical activity habit in adolescent girls.
Method: A qualitative study was conducted by means of semi-structured interviews with twenty
five participants (adolescents, mothers, and fathers). The interviews were tape-recorded
transcribed verbatim and analyzed through qualitative content analysis.
Results: Two main themes emerged as exercising habit barriers in adolescent girls: explicit
restraints, implicit restraints.
Conclusion: This study provided a better understanding of exercising habit barriers in
adolescent girls that is often missing from quantitative work. Identifying and removing barriers
can help researches to develop exercising habit which has a main role in human health
promotion.

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