EHE News

Study shows how adolescents, parents cope with obesity bias in PE

Weidong Li

In physical education class, overweight adolescents can be teased unmercifully by peers. In a new study by Assistant Professor Weidong Li, 50 adolescents reported hearing comments such as, "You're too big to do this exercise" and "Ten bucks she can't hit that ball." Even when the overweight adolescents successfully completed an activity, they heard, "Dang, her big self hit that ball."

Little is known about how overweight or obese adolescents cope with weight-related teasing in physical activity or education settings and the resulting emotions. Li, who joined the School of Physical Activity and Educational Services last autumn, set out to study them.

Coping strategies

Li's study showed that overweight adolescents used a variety of coping strategies to deal with teasing. For example, the adolescents would:

actively ignore the negative comments
talk to the teaser and tell them how they felt
laugh in their face after hearing the negative comment
prove them wrong if told they could not do something
protect themselves from teasers by surrounding themselves with others who would support or help create high self-esteem
work on their weight by exercising and eating healthfully
talk to someone for social support after they were teased
get their minds off the teasing by doing something they were good at or enjoyed
focus positively on themselves
seek professional help from a counselor or therapist

Li explains that multiple coping mechanisms, not just one, are often needed to buffer teasing or make the adolescent feel better. "Not all coping mechanisms were right for a person or a situation," he says. "An adolescent might try one, and if it didn't work, go on to another."

Strategies for teachers

Li recommends that teachers design learning environments and curriculum to improve overweight or obese students' enjoyment of and participation in PE. For one, he suggests that PE teachers empower such students by giving them leadership opportunities in the class. This allows them to engage in the activity and with their peers.

Another strategy is to focus on mastery instead of comparisons. In physical fitness testing, for example, the teacher can help all students set individual improvement goals. "We don't need students to become professional athletes," Li says. "We want to create inclusive physical education environments where teachers present developmentally appropriate tasks, elicit personal and social responsibility, and foster collaboration among learners."

Strategies for parents

PhD student In Sook Kim received the Harry C. Moores Scholarship and the Marilyn Ruth Hathaway Education Scholarship at the college's 2008 Graduate Scholarship Tea.

Parents of overweight adolescents in the study also tried multiple strategies to help their children cope. Many focused on living a healthy lifestyle but experienced frustrations because they lacked time or detailed weight loss and exercise plans.

"Educating parents on how to develop exercise plans and how to monitor and regulate exercise behaviors is needed," Li says. "Many parents don't have access to enough scientific information about healthful eating and exercise."

In Sook Kim, Li's PhD student who analyzed the parent data, identified parents' frustrations with PE programs. They include:

limited physical education time or no physical education at all
activities are not fun
no activity choices
too much focus on competitive sports

Based on the findings, Kim suggests PE teachers need to better communicate to parents about the physical educational components, increase strategies to include overweight students in classes, and have greater accountability for PE teaching.

Methodology

Weidong Li conducted this study with a grant from the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance. He and colleague Paul Rukavina, an assistant professor at Adelphi University, interviewed 50 Southern adolescents with body mass indexes greater than the 85th percentile for their age, and 42 of their parents. The students were recruited from low socioeconomic status, urban schools.

Weidong Li and In Sook Kim will present more details from the study at the March 2009 convention of the American Alliance of Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance. Journal articles and further research are under development.

The Ohio State University

www.osu.edu