Physical activity attitudes of African American and white adolescent girls

Understanding the attitudes of African American adolescent girls toward physical activity may help identify strategies to enable these adolescents to adopt a more physically active lifestyle that could track into adulthood.

To identify and compare attitudes of African American adolescent girls toward physical activity with the attitudes of white adolescent girls.

Six focus groups (N = 49) were conducted with 9th- through 12th-grade African American and white adolescent girls. Participants were recruited from community and medical settings in an urban city. Groups were audiotaped, coded, and analyzed for themes.

African American participants were more accepting of their body image than were the white participants as individuals, as a community, and in the media. Themes common among African American and white participants included appearance and hygiene, value of physical activity, and issues of masculinity. Physically active adolescents reported on the significance of social support in motivating their physical activity participation.

Future research on these attitudes could help inform the design of effective and culturally appropriate interventions to promote physical activity in African American and white adolescent girls.