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How does the support of friends and family influence physical activity?

This is an excerpt from Physical Best 5th Edition With HKPropel Access by Jayne D. Greenberg,Joe Deutsch.

By Ken Murfay

Social support is one of the primary modes through which a person establishes patterns of behavior. Teachers can implement strategies to provide students with praise, encouragement, and support to be physically active that comes from different influential people in their lives. For children and adolescents, social support comes in three major forms: parental support (when the child is young), parental and peer support (as the child ages through middle school and high school), and teacher and coach support (throughout childhood). Of these three factors, parental involvement has been shown to have the strongest connection with a child’s physical activity level, but support from peers and teachers has also been found at times to be significantly associated with students’ physical activity self-efficacy (Davison et al., 2006; Prochaska et al., 2002; Sallis et al., 1999; Trost et al., 2003; Zhang et al., 2012). With this in mind we will present strategies to increase support from students’ parents and peers and how physical education teachers can help support students’ continued engagement in physical activity.

When parents support their children through encouragement, praise, teaching, transportation to a facility or other location for activity, and playing with their children, those children are significantly more active than are children of parents who support activity at a lower level (Davison et al., 2006; Prochaska et al., 2002; Sallis et al., 1999; Trost et al., 2003). For this reason, programs should encourage parents to be active with their children before, during, or after school. This involvement increases children’s motivation to be active and leads to increased physical activity by the parents as well. Involving parents in this process is difficult and requires considerable planning and organization, which is why some previous physical activity programs struggled with this task (Gentile et al., 2009; Luepker et al., 1996; Pate et al., 2003). We ­recommend not trying to address this problem alone; instead, such efforts may benefit from a committee of dedicated planners, coordinators, staff members, and volunteers (see chapter 14). Following are some specific strategies for enhancing motivation for physical activity through parent involvement.

• Communicate. Create a school website for physical education and wellness and use it to provide ideas for family fun that include physical activity. Routinely update the site to show the physical activities that students are engaging in at school. Consider also providing such updates via social media.
• Support. Create positive relationships with parents so that they feel valued as members of the school community and share in the school’s vision of success. Provide support to help parents become involved to the point where they are not only encouraged but also expected to participate (Herman et al., 2014).
• Engage. Create at-home challenges, share them with students during class, and encourage students to get their family members involved at home. Ask students to initiate a specific physical activity at home—for example, a walking challenge, a TV commercial fitness challenge (family members perform various exercises during commercial breaks), or a simple dance performed to a popular song that they have learned in physical education.
• Find opportunities to move. Encourage students to work with their parents to create as many opportunities to move as possible throughout the day (Segar, 2015). Examples include parking far away from the grocery store, standing instead of sitting while completing homework, walking while waiting to pick up an older sibling at an after-school activity, and taking a “longcut” while walking to a neighbor’s house or running errands.
• Share resources. Create a take-home kit of various physical activity equipment (e.g., jump rope, set of cups for stacking, flying disc, plastic bat and ball). Allow students to take the kit home and engage their family in physical activity, then share with the class about the activity they did at home.
• Incorporate health-related fitness. Take every opportunity to include physical activity in schoolwide events, including those that involve parents and families. Can band and choral concerts include a physical activity component, such as dancing? Can physical activity also be incorporated into book fairs, indoor carnivals, reading clubs, and before- and after-school programs?
• Advocate. Ask students to analyze and reflect on their family’s physical ­activity habits. They can then help their family become more active by creating a SMART plan (see section on goal setting later in this chapter). This approach gives ­students ownership of physical activity recommendations for themselves and their family members and allows them to advocate for physical activity within their home.
• Make students the experts. Host an evening or weekend event focused on health-related fitness where students teach and lead a variety of physical activities for parents and teachers. Examples include Zumba, Drums Alive, yoga, team handball, and walking groups.

Think about adults who are physically active for a lifetime. These individuals often have a walking buddy, a friend to play tennis with, or a group of acquaintances they look forward to catching up with at their weekly kickboxing class. These positive and supportive relationships can also be established in schools to help students see that physical activity can be an enjoyable and social part of their lives (National PE Standard 3). Furthermore, peers can often have a strong influence on other students’ daily decisions, and interacting with peers has been found to be a meaningful experience for students (Beni et al., 2017; Fitzgerald et al., 2012; Murfay et al., 2022). One study even found that friend support was a better predictor of physical activity than support from family and teachers (Zhang et al., 2012). With this in mind, teachers can help students feel socially connected with peers while engaging in physical activity by implementing intentional team-building activities and giving them opportunities to support each other socially during physical activity. Teachers can create a positive physical activity culture among peers at school through wellness clubs, intramural activities, team challenges, and opportunities to be active before, during, and after school. Focusing on the social element of physical activity helps build sustainable ­physical activity behaviors (Segar, 2015). Following are specific strategies for ­increasing motivation through social activities that support physical activity.

• Motivation buddies. At the elementary school level, identify motivation buddies who are responsible for encouraging each other during physical education. Motivation buddies do not define groups for activities or games; instead, they provide a guaranteed network of support for each student. For example, a ­motivation buddy might give a peer a high five before or after an activity, ­comment on something that the buddy did well in class that day, or ­encourage the buddy to be physically active on the playground. In order to help all children feel included in physical education, Tingstrom (2015) asserts that teachers must “expect all students to be supportive of one another” (p. 12). She ­recommends identifying students who are naturally supportive and pairing them with ­students who may need extra support to be physically active.
• Peer support groups. Assign students or let them decide their own peer support groups where they participate in group discussions (see earlier) that are designed to provide students with encouragement to work toward their goals, praise for student successes with physical activity, and a safe place to share their positive and negative moments during the process of being physically active. Teachers could have students check in daily with their support groups in class or by phone, email, text, or social media.
• Sport education model. At the secondary level, the sport education model, ­developed by Daryl Siedentop (2009), may help increase social support for physical activity. In this model, students participate as members of teams in seasons that last longer than the usual physical education unit. This approach allows students to participate in a sport experience while developing camaraderie through team uniforms, names, and motivational support for their team. Thus, students are able to feel as though they are part of something special while also enhancing their skill development in sport.
• Group adventure challenges. Consider using ideas from a popular activity among adults of all ages and fitness abilities—obstacle course racing (Mullins, 2012). Races such as the Tough Mudder, Warrior Dash, and Spartan Race series include physical challenges requiring strength and endurance while promoting camaraderie and teamwork. Teachers can create obstacle-style or adventure challenges in physical education classes that are based not on individual success or competition but on peer support and group completion of the course. Be sure to add a fun element to these activities (Kulik et al., 2017).
• Unified physical education. To assist students with disabilities with making social connections with peers through physical activity, teachers could implement unified physical education classes. These classes attempt to have a one-to-one ratio of general education students and students with disabilities. These classes support the development of leadership skills and empower all students to foster an inclusive environment (www.shapeamerica.org​/ResourcesPublications/Unified_PE/default.aspx).
• Technology. Another way to add a social element that helps students provide peer support for physical activity is to use specialized apps and websites. Table 2.1 describes some options that can foster a sense of community and ­connectedness through the common theme of physical activity.

Supporting students to be physically active can also come from the teachers ­themselves. Social support from teachers or instructors can assist with increasing physical activity self-efficacy and reaching a physical activity goal (Chase et al., 2018; Burke et al., 2015). Some easy ways to support students with their physical activity journey are to provide them with encouragement to be physically active, praise for doing so, and dozens of high fives to help students feel more competent and confident in their physical abilities. For students who need extrinsic motivation, reinforcement might come in the form of rewards like tokens (e.g., stickers) that can be exchanged at the end of the goal period for something of value—for instance, free time, choice of activities, points toward a grade, or even a day off.

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