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In today's world, physical activities and sport is one of the areas of life that competes with other areas of life for the attention of young people. Physical activity relationship (PAR) reflects the central role that physical activities plays in an individual's life. If PAR is weak, you will not find the strong and many individual appealing aspects of sport. Conversely, a person with a strong PAR will find many strong meanings that are important to them. This study uses the PAR approach to examine the positive meanings that Finnish children aged 11-15 years attach to physical activity and the change in their emphasis from 2014 to 2022, using data collected through the F-SPA survey in 2014 (n=2728), 2018 (n=2073) and 2022 (n=2177). The importance of physical activity for children was tracked in the questionnaires using a 34-item scale.
The results show that the valuing of the meanings of physical activities had fallen significantly between 2014 and 2022. In 2022, Finnish children did not find as many important meanings for themselves in physical activity as they did eight years earlier. The change has been particularly marked among girls. The results reflect a cultural shift where physical activity is less valued. Former research shows that the number of important meanings identified is linked to personal physical activity levels. However, the cultural change identified in this study does not bode well for the promotion of physical activity.
