“I like to watch”–audience experiences of media coverage of physical activity and sedentary...

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hysical activity mass media campaigns: Impacts on differentocio-economic groups

. Thomas 1,2,∗

ARTD ConsultantsUniversity of Sydney

Introduction: People who are poor, who live in disadvan-aged areas and who have low levels of formal education, haveoorer health and earlier mortality that people who have mate-ial resources, live in affluent neighbourhoods and have high levelsf formal education. Purposive mass media campaigns have been aopular means of conveying public health information over recentecades in many developed countries.

Objectives: This research was undertaken to examine whetheropulation-wide mass media campaigns impact equally on allocio-economic groups.

Methods: Data from the evaluations of two physical activityampaigns in Australia and one in Hawaii were reanalyzed to assesshe differences between different education groups in: campaignecall, knowledge about physical activity recommendations, self-fficacy for physical activity, intention to be active and physicalctivity behavior.

Results: Recall of all three campaigns was equally likely inll educational groups. Improvements in knowledge appeared tolightly favour the more educated. Self-efficacy improved only inne campaign and there was a slight trend of more improvement inelf-efficacy among the least-well educated in that campaign andas related to campaign recall. There were no differences between

ducation groups in the likelihood of improvement in intention toe physically active. There were no significant increases in phys-

cal activity behavior following any of the campaigns or in anyducation group.

Conclusions: These results confirm evidence from other cam-aign evaluations that the impacts of physical activity mass mediaampaigns are similar in different socio-economic groups. Theres room for improvement in the design and execution of physicalctivity mass media campaigns so that they have a more positivempact on the least active, and most disadvantaged in our commu-ities.

ttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2012.11.506

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I like to watch”–audience experiences of media coverage ofhysical activity and sedentary behaviour

. Bonfiglioli 1,∗, B. Smith 2

University of Technology, SydneyMonash University

Introduction: The mass media are recognised as key elementsf the obesogenic environment and powerful influencers of publicnderstandings and behaviours. There is growing recognition of theublic health implications of media framing of causes, solutions andesponsibility for physical activity (PA) and inactivity and the needor more intensive research investigating physical activity-related

edia. Media messages can only contribute to healthy active livingf audiences are exposed to the messages and respond to them by

d Medicine in Sport 15 (2012) S188–S264

Methods: We interviewed 46 members of the public fromfive weight categories, three age groups and three geographicalregions. We asked them what they thought about media coverageof physical activity and sedentary behaviours. Analysis of resultinginterview transcripts employs content analysis, frame analysis andthematic nVivo coding. Ethics clearance has been obtained from theinstitutional HREC committee REF NO. 2010-033A. Funding for thisDiscovery Project was provided by the Australian Research Council.

Results: Many of these members of the public commented thatthere was not enough news and media coverage about physicalactivity, that the media focused too much on professional, commer-cialized sport, sensational news and conflicting information andprovided too little coverage of the ‘practical’, ‘day to day stuff’. Par-ticipants said they liked to watch professional sport: “I like physicalactivity–I could watch it all day”, media coverage can be encourag-ing, and government campaigns were visible, but they would liketo see more news coverage of non-professional PA and more educa-tional and advisory information. Audiences said inactivity receivedeven less media coverage and was usually associated with obe-sity stories. Many participants had seen media coverage of kidsspending too much time on computers but some said there wastoo little about adult inactivity and sedentary jobs. The media couldoffer more practical advice, although one participant acknowledgedresisting media messages: “I might not listen to it as much becauseI know that I need to get out more.”

Discussion: Media audiences appear to be receiving more mes-sages about obesity and overweight than about physical activityand inactivity, audiences feel the focus is often on children and lackspractical advice about causes and solutions. Interventions aimed atincreasing interactions between physical activity researchers andprofessionals and the media have the potential to draw the mediaspotlight onto the crisis of inactivity.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2012.11.507

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Adolescent walking and biking to school in the Danish SPACEStudy: The influence of individual, social and school site factors

L. Christiansen 1,∗, M. Toftager 1, B. Linke 1, A. Ersbøll 2, J. Troelsen 1

1 Institute of Sport Science and Clinical Biomechanics, University ofSouthern Denmark2 National Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark

Introduction: Active transport to school (ATS) contributes toadolescent physical activity, but the prevalence of ATS seems to bedeclining worldwide. In Denmark there have been reported someof the highest prevalence’s for ATS–especially biking to school–butthere are a large variation between schools. The aim of this partof the SPACE Study was to investigate the influence of individual,social and physical environmental variables on adolescent ATS inDenmark.

Methods: This part of the SPACE study draws data from thebaseline measurement of 1348 adolescents attending grade 5 and6 in 14 schools in the Region of Southern Denmark. Informationabout ATS was assessed with a 5-day diary. The independent vari-ables were obtained through school records, student questionnaire,Statistics Denmark and GIS data from Danish Cadastre. The effect ofthe independent variables on adolescent ATS was evaluated usingmultilevel statistical models.

Results: 1269 adolescents with a mean age on 12.5 years (SD 0.6)