“How Can We Stay Healthy when you’re Throwing All of this in Front of Us?” Findings from Focus Groups and Interviews in Middle Schools on Environmental Influences on Nutrition and Physical Activity

This study aimed to identify factors in school physical and social environments that may facilitate or compete with programs and policies to improve student physical activity and nutrition. Focus groups and interviews were conducted with students, faculty, and staff of two public middle schools. Par...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Health education & behavior 2004-02, Vol.31 (1), p.34-46
Main Authors: Bauer, Katherine W., Yang, Y. Wendy, Austin, S. Bryn
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Attitude to Health
Biological and medical sciences
Body Weight
Bullying
Child
Child Nutritional Physiological Phenomena
Competition
Environmental Influences
Exercise - psychology
Faculty
Feeding Behavior
Female
Focus Groups
Food
Food Services - standards
Health Behavior
Health Promotion
Humans
Interviews
Interviews as Topic
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Schools
Miscellaneous
New England
Nutrition
Physical Activities
Physical Education
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
Safety
Schools
Social Environment
Team Sports
Time
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Summary:This study aimed to identify factors in school physical and social environments that may facilitate or compete with programs and policies to improve student physical activity and nutrition. Focus groups and interviews were conducted with students, faculty, and staff of two public middle schools. Participants identified numerous aspects of the school environments as significant. Competition, teasing and bullying, time, and safety were described as major barriers for students to be physically active during physical education class, on sports teams, and before and after school. The quality of the food served, easy access to nonnutritious snacks, limited time for lunch period, and weight concerns emerged as significant reasons why students do not eat nutritious meals in school. When developing programs and policies to improve the health of students, environmental influences that undermine efforts to improve student health behaviors must be addressed.
ISSN:1090-1981
1552-6127
DOI:10.1177/1090198103255372