An Explanatory Model of the Relationships between Physical Activity, Social Support and Screen Time among Adolescents

Effective physical activity studies are necessary to understand how factors involved in physical activity mediate behaviour. Therefore, more reliable explanatory models can be generated in order to design effective actions to promote physical activity. The study had two aims: (1) to develop an explanatory model to identify and establish the relationships between physical activity, social support and screen time among adolescents; and (2) to contrast the explanatory structural model by means of a multi-group analysis according to sex. The study design was cross-sectional with descriptive and correlational analysis. The research was carried out with a representative sample of adolescents from the province of Soria (mean age 14.06 ± 1.27 years). The instruments used were: Four by One-Day Physical Activity Questionnaire, Parent Support Scale and Peer Support Scale. The results show that social support had a negative relationship with screen time (r = -0.178; p ≤ 0.001); males had a positive relationship between physical activity and screen time (r = 0.118; p ≤ 0.05); and peer support had more influence on social support than parental support. In conclusion, the proposed model was effective in triangulating the relationships between physical activity, social support and screen time in a novel way, while allowing us to discriminate these results according to participants' sex.