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Promoting Physical Activity Among Health Professional Students, Faculty, and Staff Members: A Competition-Based
Chenyu Zou1, Joshua C Hollingsworth2, Robin Gosdin Farrell3
1Health Outcomes Research and Policy, Harrison College of Pharmacy, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA (CZ, BIF).
The Deans' Fit Family Challenge (DFFC) promotes physical activity in health programs. While effective, improvements are needed to sustain engagement and enhance future interventions for students and staff.
Area of Science:
- Health Promotion
- Behavioral Science
- Intervention Studies
Background:
- The Deans' Fit Family Challenge (DFFC) is an annual physical activity competition designed for health professional programs.
- It aims to foster self-efficacy, self-regulation, and social support for health-related fitness.
- The program utilizes team-based competition and activity tracking to encourage participation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review data from the DFFC and identify areas for improvement.
- To propose future directions for enhancing competition-based interventions.
- To apply principles of Social Cognitive Theory to program development.
Main Methods:
- Data collection via the ChallengeRunner app or manual entry of weekly activity minutes.
- Weekly winner announcements and a composite score (active minutes, weight loss) to determine the winning college.
- Analysis of participant engagement and reported physical activity levels over the competition duration.
Main Results:
- 1164 participants reported an average of 217.1 weekly minutes of physical activity.
- Participant engagement decreased from 94.0% in week 1 to 56.3% by week 8.
- The DFFC demonstrates potential for promoting physical activity within participating health programs.
Conclusions:
- The DFFC is a valuable initiative for increasing physical activity among health professional students, faculty, and staff.
- Ongoing exploration and refinement of motivational strategies are necessary to improve long-term engagement.
- Future iterations should focus on enhancing the sustainability and impact of competition-based health interventions.
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