Social, Policy and Environmental Approaches

Question 1

What are Social Approaches to Physical Activity Interventions? (Description, Research, Drawbacks)

Answer 1

– Social approaches to physical activity interventions focus on structuring people’s social environments to help support physical activity endeavours
– Establish exercise groups and buddy systems
– Teach people to ask for support
– Telephone and email support systems
– Social networking

– Research
– Majority of interventions use a combined approach
– Effectiveness may depend on the population
– Important for children and youth
– Less important for healthy adults
– More important for older adults, adults with health-related concerns and people with disabilities

– Drawbacks
– Success is contingent on co-operation of the group
– Facilitate quality as opposed to quantity
– Maintenance

Question 2

What are environmental / Policy Approaches to physical activity intervention? (Description, drawbacks)

Answer 2

– Change the physical and organizational structures that facilitate physical activity in an entire population
– physical environment – create safe, lighted walking paths
– organization based – physical education cirricula
– community-wide – policies or legislation establishing financial incentives for organizations and communities to provide access to exercise opportunities

– Drawbacks
– Long and difficult process
– Research on overall effectiveness is sparse