Adolescents' perceptions of health and physical exercise

Abstract

The purpose of this descriptive, exploratory research was to explore adolescents' perceptions of health and physical exercise. Twenty adolescents (n = 20) were divided into 2 groups often (10) to generate ideas and discuss the topics 'health' and 'physical exercise' using the nominal group technique. The discussions were transcribed and a qualitative analyses of the data was undertaken. The findings showed that adolescents have a broad perception of health which include physical, psychological/emotional and cultural health. They appear knowledgeable about health, but are surrounded by conflicting messages and have several misconceptions of health. They also viewed health as being dynamic, changing throughout an individual's life. Adolescents viewed physical exercise as being important for health and the highest benefits of exercise were expressed in terms of strenuous physical activities and sports. Physical exercise is viewed as a means of protection against physical, psychological/emotional and social problems. Several misconceptions about physical exercise were also expressed by the adolescents. Recommendations based on the findings, include emphasising the psychological, social and emotional benefits of health and physical exercise in addition to the physiological benefits, helping adolescents to deal with inconsistent messages and helping adolescents to value and understand the benefits of health and physical exercise. Moreover, several suggestions for further research have been made, which include the use of unstructured interviews, larger scale studies, inclusion of girls and research on perceptions of health amongst adults to compare them to perceptions of adolescents