Social Support Key to Encouraging College Students to Exercise.

2001 JAN 25 - (NewsRx.com) -- College students are more likely to exercise if they have social support for being active, but the best kind of social support differs between men and women.

A new study of 937 randomly selected students at Ohio State University found that women were more likely to exercise if they had the social support of family, while the support of friends was more important for men.

"We found that it's important for college students to have people to encourage them to stay physically fit, but the source of the social support makes a difference for men and women," said Lorraine Silver Wallace, Ohio State University.

Wallace, who is now at the University of Texas at Tyler, conducted the study with her dissertation advisor Janet Buckworth, an assistant professor of sport and exercise sciences at Ohio State. The study was published in a recent issue of the journal Preventive Medicine. Overall, the study found that slightly more than half the 937 students (52%) were physically inactive or only exercised irregularly. About one third (31%) had exercised regularly for six months or longer. The remainder (17%) had exercised regularly for less than six months.

"The steepest decline in the number of people who are involved in physical activity occurs during adolescence and early adulthood, so it is crucial that we reach those college students who are not yet regular exercisers," Buckworth said. "We need to find ways to help the roughly half of college students who are not exercising regularly."

The fact that regular exercisers tended to have the support of friends or family is one key to designing intervention programs for college students, according to Buckworth.

"If you have a female college student who has strong support and encouragement from her family to be physically active, she would be more likely to join an aerobics class, even if the class was far from her residence hall," she said. "But a female student who didn't have the ...