Despite accumulating evidence of the health benefits of regular physical activity (Strong et al., 2005), most children in the U.S. are physically inactive. Recent estimates suggest that only 40–50% of children 6–11 years of age and 6–11% of children 12–15 years of age engage in ≥60 minutes per day of moderate-intensity activity on at least 5 out of the past 7 days (Troiano et al., 2008). In order to address this problem, correlational and experimental studies have sought to identify cognitive, social, and environmental factors associated with physical activity among children (Ferreira et al., 2007; Van der Horst, Paw, Twisk, & Van Mechelen, 2007). However, the impact of these variables on physical activity has been limited, and many of the observed effects are modest in magnitude (Van Sluijs, McMinn, & Griffin, 2008). Thus, it may be fruitful to identify other psychosocial factors that play a role in physical activity among children.

There is growing interest in understanding the complex interrelationships between emotions, subjective physical feeling states (e.g., energetic arousal, fatigue), and physical activity in children. For instance, children who are more physically active tend to have lower levels of depressive symptoms (McDermott et al., 1990), and engaging in structured physical activity has been shown to reduce depression (Norris, Carroll, & Cochrane, 1992). Likewise, children report enhanced positive affect and feeling physically energetic, and reduced negative affect after structured exercise tasks (Schneider, Dunn, & Cooper, 2009). Plausible mechanisms underlying a beneficial affective response to physical activity include mood enhancement through biological pathways (e.g., beta-endorphins, endogenous opioids) (Dinas, Koutedakis, & Flouris, 2011; Grossman et al., 1984) and psychological processes (e.g., increased sense of achievement, self-esteem, self-efficacy) (Scully, Kremer, Meade, Graham, & Dudgeon, 1998).

Although these studies offer support for the effects of habitual and acute exercise on affective and physical feeling states, the question of whether affective and physical feeling states impact children’s decisions to engage in physical activity remains unanswered. Emotional states are thought to play a central role in motivational processes underlying a variety of behaviors (Naqvi, Shiv, & Bechara, 2006), including those that promote physical health such as physical activity. For example, positive emotional states may influence health-relevant behaviors by engendering psychological resources (e.g., coping, social support) (Salovey, Detweiler, & Steward, 2000) or increasing appetitive motivation to participate in those behaviors (Updegraff, Gable, & Taylor, 2004). In contrast, negative emotions may trigger a motivational state of behavioral avoidance (Leone, Perugini, & Bagozzi, 2005), which could extend to multiple effortful behaviors, including physical activity. Thus, there may be a bi-directional association between affective states and physical activity. However, methodological weaknesses of past studies have restricted the capacity to test the effects of affective states on naturally-occurring physical activity levels in children.

A limitation of past research in this area is the reliance of structured exercise tasks in controlled laboratory settings to assess the association of exercise, affect, and physical feeling states. Participants are typically asked to perform a standardized exercise task such as riding stationary cycle or running on a treadmill for a specific intensity for a prescribed duration (Schneider et al., 2009). However, it has been shown that structured indoor physical activity causes greater perceived exertion (Bertucci, Grappe, & Groslamber, 2007) and is less psychologically restorative (Hug, Hartig, Hansmann, Seeland, & Hornung, 2009) than physical activity taking place in outdoor or naturalistic conditions. Thus, research is needed to understand how affective and physical feeling states may impact the choice to perform physical activity in free-living settings.

Another limitation of past research is the lack of focus on within-person differences in affective and physical feeling states. There is growing evidence suggesting that children’s affective and physical feeling states can vary considerably across each day (Axelson et al 2003; Larson & Lampman-Petraitis, 1989). Also, the degree of within-person (i.e., intraindividual) variability in affect over time is related to important physical and psychological health outcomes (Dumitrescu, Dogaru, & Dogaru, 2008; Weinstein, Mermelstein, Shiffman, 2008). Cross-sectional studies or intervention studies with pre-post measurements designs cannot adequately capture intraindividual variability (i.e., the degree of instability) in affective and physical feeling states.

These methodological weaknesses can be overcome with a real-time data capture strategy called Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA). EMA obtains self-reports of psychological, affective, and behavioral variables during the course of everyday life (Bolger, Davis, & Rafaeli, 2003; Shiffman, Stone, & Hufford, 2008). In some modern EMA applications, mobile phones trigger the completion of brief electronic surveys through auditory signals programmed to occur at predetermined intervals throughout the day. Electronic surveys are time-stamped in order to be temporally linked to other types of data such as contemporaneous physical activity levels. Preliminary studies have used EMA to examine the associations of affective and physical feeling states with physical activity in adults (Dunton, Atienza, Castro, & King, 2009; Kanning, & Schlicht, 2010; Lepage, 2011; Schwerdtfeger et al., 2010; Wichers et al., 2012) and between affective states and other health behaviors such as smoking (Hedeker, Mermelstein, Berbaum, & Campbell, 2009) and caffeine consumption (Whalen et al., 2008) in children. Research has also used EMA to examine social and physical environmental influences on children’s physical activity (Dunton, Intille, Wolch, & Pentz, 2012; Dunton, Kawabata, Intille, Wolch, & Pentz, 2012; Dunton, Liao, Intille, Wolch, & Pentz, 2011). However, there is no published study capitalizing on EMA methodology to investigate linkages between affective and physical feelings states and physical activity in children.

The current study used EMA to examine how affective and physical feeling states are related to objectively-measured physical activity in children ages 9 to 13 years. In previous analyses of this sample (Dunton et al., 2011; Dunton, Intille, et al., 2012; Dunton, Kawabata et al., 2012), we focused on non-affective correlates of physical activity. The current paper reflects a unique contribution by focusing specifically on the relation of affective and feeling states to physical activity and attempts to elucidate affective mechanisms of physical activity in children. The first objective was to determine whether affective and physical feeling ratings at any given EMA prompt predict subsequent moderate-to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) in the 30 minutes after the prompt. It was hypothesized that more positive affect/feeling energetic and less negative affect/feeling tired at any given EMA prompt (relative to the child’s own average level and other children) would predict more MVPA minutes measured in the 30 minutes following that EMA prompt. The second objective was to determine whether affective and physical feeling ratings at any given EMA prompt are predicted by MVPA in the 30 minutes before the prompt. We hypothesized that more MVPA minutes in the 30 minutes before any given EMA prompt (relative to the child’s own average level and other children) would predict more positive affect/feeling energetic and less negative affect/feeling tired at the time of that EMA prompt. The third objective was to determine whether across the entire monitoring period, individual differences in intraindividual variability (i.e., degree of instability) in affective and physical feeling ratings are associated with mean hourly leisure-time MVPA. We expected that children with lower leisure-time MVPA would show greater instability in affective and physical feeling states. Physical activity may stabilize mood and/or emotionally unstable children may lack psychological resources or executive cognitive capacities (Zelazo & Mueller, 2002) necessary for planning, organizing, and participating in regular physical activity regimens. We explored gender as a moderator for all of the objectives listed above.

Momentary assessment of affect, physical feeling states, and physical activity in children.

Invited Guest Editorial: Envisioning the next fifty years of research on the exercise–affect relationship

Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning

In 2009, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) forced Caster Semenya, the women's 800-meter champion from South Africa, to submit to “gender verification tests.” It took eleven months for officials to review the results of those tests and, ultimately, permit her compete again. Sports organizations, including the IAAF and the International Olympic Committee, have implemented sex testing since the 1960s, but Semenya's story reinvigorated debates about how to determine sex and whether sex testing is necessary in sport. However, I argue that there is another issue at which researchers should direct energies. That is, instead of asking whether an athlete “counts as” a woman, kinesiologists and those in affiliated fields might better concentrate their efforts on discerning which conditions, naturally occurring or otherwise, constitute unfair advantages.

Caster Semenya and the “Question of Too”: Sex Testing in Elite Women's Sport and the Issue of Advantage

BackgroundThe psychological benefits of exercise are repeatedly and consistently reported in the literature. Various forms of exercise, varying in duration and intensity, yield comparably positive changes in affect, which sheds doubt on the significance of exercise characteristics in the acute mental health benefits resulting from physical activity.AimsBased on research evidence, it is argued that the placebo effect may play a key role in the subjective exercise experience. This report is aimed at highlighting those aspects of the extant literature that call for the reconsideration of the placebo effect in the understanding of the acute mental benefits of physical activity.Method and resultsThis narrative review focuses on research evidence demonstrating that the duration and intensity of physical activity are not mediatory factors in the mental health benefits of acute exercise. Current research evidence pointing to the roles of expectancy and conditioning in the affective benefits of exercise calls for ...

Acute psychological benefits of exercise: Reconsideration of the placebo effect

The “feel better” effect of exercise has been well established, but the optimal intensity needed to elicit a positive affective response is controversial. In addition, the mechanisms underlying such a response are unclear. To clarify these issues, female undergraduate students were monitored for electroencephalographic (EEG) and self-reported affective responses during the recovery period following rest, low, moderate, and high intensities of treadmill running, each lasting 30 min. Frontal EEG asymmetry and self-reported vigor scores following exercise at all three intensities were significantly elevated compared to those observed following rest. The results suggest that steady-state aerobic exercise bouts executed at varying intensities induce a similar affective response during the recovery period when assessed at both the behavioral and psychophysiological levels.

The Influence of Exercise Intensity on Frontal Electroencephalographic Asymmetry and Self-Reported Affect

The latter half of the 20th century witnessed the dramatic rise of specialization in the subdisciplines of kinesiology, which resulted in scholarly development, but fragmentation. A need is articulated herein for an “issues-based” approach to research that will attract scholars from multiple subdisciplines, address compelling challenges of social significance, and foster a strong professional identity. Two examples of integrative approaches, embodied as centers, are developed in both the health- and performance-related areas of kinesiology. Initially, the multilevel research possibilities relevant to a Center for Physical Activity and the Dementias are discussed and followed by the possibilities for a Center for the Study of Elite Performance. The benefits of an integrative approach to societal interests and the discipline of kinesiology are described.

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Brradley D. Hatfield

Papers

The Influence of Exercise Intensity on Frontal Electroencephalographic Asymmetry and Self-Reported Affect

E Pluribus Unum—From DNA to Social Systems: Understanding Physical Activity Through an Integrated Perspective