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| Journal of the New Zealand Medical Association,
04-June-2004, Vol 117 No 1195
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Interest and participation in selected sports among New
Zealand adolescents
Rosalina Richards, Anthony Reeder, Helen Darling
Sedentary lifestyles are associated with poor physical and
mental health,1 and place a significant burden
on health
services.2 In New Zealand, more than 2000
premature deaths each year are attributed to physical
inactivity.3 Adolescents have been identified
as an important population to target, due to declines in participation in
physical activity during this life period.4-6 A
recent study of New Zealand secondary school students found 30% of males and 43%
of females did not participate in regular (more than 3 days per week)
moderate-vigorous physical activity.7
This study focuses on one component (sport participation) of
the overall opportunities for physical activity participation. Information about
participation in specific sports in New Zealand is available from Sport and
Recreation New Zealand (SPARC),8 and some
historical data are available from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and
Development Study.4 These sources indicate that
among New Zealand adolescents the most popular sports include rugby union,
soccer, netball, basketball, touch rugby, swimming, and athletics.
Research by SPARC has found that between half and two-thirds
of adolescents are interested in participating in a new sport or active
leisure.8 This is a positive finding for public
health as it suggests that, with the opportunity and support to be more active,
many adolescents would like to increase their participation. In addition to this
general expression of interest in participation, it would be useful to have
information at a sport specific level, which may indicate paths for encouraging
sport participation among this age group. Given current patterns of sport
participation it is also likely that interests differ between males and
females.
Therefore, the aim of the current study was to examine
participation and interest in selected sports among a sample of New Zealand
adolescents, and to identify sports where there may be opportunities for
increasing participation.
MethodsSample—Sampling
methods have been described in greater detail
elsewhere.9 In summary, in 2002, multi-stage
cluster sampling was used to randomly select 82 secondary schools and classes of
Year 10 and 12 students from within six geographical regions throughout New
Zealand.
Measures—Participants
completed a questionnaire while being supervised by trained interviewers within
a school classroom setting. The questionnaire asked participants to indicate
their sex, ethnicity, and whether they received money from working at a
part-time job.
Participants were also asked to indicate (on a list of
18 forms of sport and active recreation [Tables 1 and 2]) which activities they
were interested in (including watching them on TV, and reading about them in
newspapers/magazines), and secondly, the activities in which they participated.
These sports were chosen based on their reported popularity in previous New
Zealand research,8 and their likelihood of
being associated with cigarette smoking (the area focused-on by the survey).
School details, including socioeconomic decile rating,
were obtained from the Ministry of Education. Schools provided class data, which
included the Year (ie, either 10 or 12) in which students were
enrolled.
Data
analysis—To adjust for the cluster sampling procedure, probability
weights were assigned at the individual student level. Diversity of sport
participation and interest was indicated (in each case) by counts of the number
of selected sports where participation or interest was expressed (out of a
possible 18 in each case). Poisson regression was used to examine associations
between these diversity measures and other variables.
ResultsThe school response rate was 58%,
with physical activity data available for 1730 females and 1704 males, including
637 students who self-identified as Maori (a weighted proportion of 15.4%).
Higher decile schools were slightly over-represented.
The percentages of students reporting participation and
interest in each of the 18 selected activities are presented (separately for
females and males) in Tables 1 and 2, respectively.
Among females, there was moderate overlap between
participation and the activities in which ‘interest’ was most
frequently expressed—with netball, dance, basketball, volleyball, soccer,
touch rugby, tennis, surfing and rugby union being of interest to at least
one-third. The activities with the greatest interest-participation differential
for female adolescents (ie, where the levels of interest outweigh participation
by 20% or more) were surfing, rugby union, rugby league, dance, basketball,
volleyball, and soccer.
Among males, as for females, there was overlap between the
activities in which participation and interest were most frequently reported,
such as rugby union, basketball, soccer, cricket, touch rugby and skateboarding.
Activities for which the reported levels of interest outweighed participation by
20% or more were rugby league, rugby union, basketball, and soccer.
Table 1. Participation and interest in selected
activities among 1730 females aged 12–17 years*
*Percentages weighted
to be nationally representative. †Top ten
ranked sports.
Table 2. Participation and interest in selected
activities among 1704 males aged 12–17 years*
*Percentages weighted
to be nationally representative. †Top ten
ranked sports.
The diversity (ie, the number of activities selected out of
the possible 18 choices) of participation and interest in the 18 selected
activities was also examined. As these were summary measures of
participation/interest in all selected activities, the groups were large enough
to allow differences in diversity to be described between Maori and non-Maori,
as well as between males and females.
There was a greater diversity of interest than participation
in the selected activities and a greater diversity of participation among males
compared to females and among Maori compared to non-Maori (Table 3).
Table 3. Overall participation and diversity of
participation and interest among the total sample (n=3434), and among Maori and
non-Maori
*Mean number of
activities among those who reported at least some participation.
Poisson regression models were created to predict (a)
diversity of participation and (b) diversity of interest in selected sports. The
univariate and adjusted associations for each model are presented in Table
4.
Table 4. Factors associated with diversity of
participation and interest in selected sports
* Higher scores on
this scale indicate greater diversity of interest
Statistically significant, but weak, associations were found
between diversity of participation in selected sports—and sex, part-time
work, and diversity of interest. Participation diversity was higher among males
than females, with males participating in 15% more sports after adjustment for
all of the other factors included in the model.
Students who received an income (from part-time work)
reported greater diversity of participation compared to those not in paid work
and, finally, there was a positive association between diversity of
participation and diversity of interest in selected sports. For the latter
association, there was a small but significant interaction effect, with
diversity of interest being more strongly related to participation among males
(ratio: 1.17; CI 1.16–1.19) than females (ratio: 1.12; CI:
1.11–1.14).
When compared to students from high decile schools, those
attending low decile schools reported greater diversity of interest in the 18
sports. No other independent variable was significantly associated with
diversity of interest in selected sports.
DiscussionStrategies that aim to promote and
increase physical activity among adolescents require up-to-date information
about the nature of current participation and the identification of promising
opportunities for promotion among this population. To identify some of these
opportunities, this study examined ‘interest’ as well as
participation (in 18 popular activities/sports) among a large sample of New
Zealand adolescents.
The sports where there were the greatest gaps between
expressed interest and actual participation included rugby union, rugby league,
basketball, soccer, and surfing (among both sexes); dance and volleyball (among
females); and skateboarding (among males). For these sports, in particular,
there may be opportunities to capitalise on the level of interest expressed and,
through provision of opportunities and support, turn this interest into actual
participation.
When the extent of participation and interest in sports
among adolescents was examined, perhaps unsurprisingly, diversity of interest
was greater than that of participation. Diversity of participation was greater
among males than females, and greater among Maori than non-Maori. When
predictors of participation diversity were examined, positive effects were found
for being male, having an income from part-time work, and having greater
diversity of interest in the selected sports.
Greater participation in sport among males than among
females is a consistent finding in studies of physical activity. Interestingly,
when diversity of interest was examined, males and females did not differ
significantly; although the association between interest and participation was
stronger among males than females. This finding is potentially useful for
informing health promotion efforts, as it suggests that, despite similar levels
of interest among males and females, factors exist that make it less likely for
interest among females to be translated into participation.
The positive impact of part-time work on diversity of
participation may relate to having additional income to help pay for increased
equipment, fees, and travel costs associated with participation in multiple
sports.
Future research in this area would benefit from the addition
of standard measures that estimate the actual frequency, duration, and intensity
of participation in each type of activity. This would allow an examination of
the factors associated with attaining ‘recommended’ levels of
physical activity—in addition to ‘overall’ participation, as
reported here.
Understanding which sports are of interest to
‘inactive’ adolescents would be particularly valuable. Another
important limitation of this study is that the list of sports is not
comprehensive, and does not include some popular sports such as athletics and
swimming; additionally, sport participation is only one component of overall
participation in physical activity.
Further research should, therefore, also focus on finding
these opportunities for non-sport physical activities such as walking and
cycling, undertaken for recreation or transport, and unstructured activities
such as gardening.
Levels of interest are, in part, likely to reflect the media
attention and level of resources held by particular sporting codes. In the case
of several popular New Zealand sports examined here, there are large groups of
young people who express interest in them, but who are not participants. While
this finding suggests potential opportunities for increasing participation,
there is also a risk that this interest may find expression solely through
‘sedentary’ involvement in sports, such as viewing elite sports
events on television or playing sport-themed video and computer games.
Overall, a challenge for public health is to provide
opportunities and support for adolescent sport and recreation—to turn
their interest into increased participation in (sport and non-sport) physical
activity.
Author information:
Rosalina Richards, Assistant Research Fellow; Anthony I. Reeder, Senior Research
Fellow; Helen Darling, PhD Student, Social and Behavioural Research in Cancer
Group, Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Dunedin Medical School,
University of Otago, Dunedin.
Acknowledgements: Ms
Richards, Dr Reeder, and the Social and Behavioural Research in Cancer Group
receive support from the Cancer Society of New Zealand and the University of
Otago. This study was undertaken whilst Helen Darling was a recipient of
University of Otago and Health Sponsorship Council scholarships. This report is
based on data from the Youth Lifestyle Survey 2002—the Health Sponsorship
Council was the primary contributor to the Youth Lifestyle Survey, with
additional support from the Ministry of Health, Cancer Society of New Zealand,
the Quit Group, and the Social and Behavioural Research in Cancer Group
(University of Otago). Lastly, we thank Sheila Williams for her statistical
guidance.
Correspondence:
Rosalina Richards, Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Dunedin Medical
School, University of Otago, PO Box 913, Dunedin. Fax: (03) 479 7298; email: rosalina@gandalf.otago.ac.nz
References:
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