Abstract
Previously, lots of evidence has supported that sociocultural pressure and body image can predict people’s participation of exercise, yet only a few studies have examined their impact on lifestyle physical activity (PA), which has been proven to be as effective as structured exercise in health and weight management. The study aims to examine an extended sociocultural model by using multi-dimensional body image concerns and objectively measured lifestyle PA data from a large sample. The study included 1557 young adults (68.10% female) aged 18–26 years. Sociocultural pressure and body image concerns were assessed using Perceived Sociocultural Pressure Scale (PSPS) and Negative Physical Self Scale (NPSS). Five-days’ lifestyle PA was measured objectively by accelerometer. Results indicated that the relationship between women’ s PSPS and light PA was fully mediated through their fatness concern (indirect effect = -.22, p < .05) and facial appearance concern (indirect effect = -.25, p < .05). The relationship between men’s PSPS and light PA was fully mediated by their fatness concern (indirect effect = -.19, p < .05). In addition, men’s fatness concern as well as their shortness concern emerged as two significant mediators for the relationship between PSPS and time spent in moderate-vigorous PA (fatness: indirect effect = .19, p < .01; shortness: indirect effect = .17, p < .01). The study supports the sociocultural model as an explanatory model for lifestyle PA behavior, and suggests that unchangeable domains of body image might be the stronger mediators of the relationship between sociocultural pressures and PA behavior.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Funding
This work was supported by the China National Natural Sciences Foundation [grant numbers 31771237]; and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [SWU1709106].
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Ling, Y., Zheng, A., Li, Q. et al. Examination of an extended sociocultural model of lifestyle physical activity among men and women. Curr Psychol 42, 23531–23540 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03475-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03475-3