Tweedie Constance, Rehman Laurene
School of Health and Human Performance, Dalhousie University, P.O. Box 15000, Halifax, NS B3H 4R2, Canada.
Children (Basel). 2025 Apr 1;12(4):456. doi: 10.3390/children12040456.
BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Adolescent girls' physical activity levels are well below the minimum recommended levels for health and wellbeing. Rural-dwelling adolescents may also experience decreased physical activity levels than their urban counterparts, placing rural adolescent girls at a greater disadvantage. The reasons for these low levels are multifactorial, including, but not limited to, age, geographical locations, and gendered stereotypes surrounding activities. Qualitative investigations into adolescent girls' physical activity can provide deeper understandings on the key barriers and supports that specific populations experience and have been limited in the current literature. This study explores the physical activity experiences of adolescent girls living in rural Nova Scotia to provide deeper understandings of the needs of this population to inform physical activity policy and programming.
Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology and feminist post-structuralism were used in a bricolage fashion to analyze six semi-structured interviews from adolescent girls between 11-13 years old living in rural eastern Nova Scotia.
Three major themes were identified from the interviews: (1) what physical activity looks like depends on your definition; (2) "What do you do when the boys take over the gym?"; and (3) "It's really nice to have space…but there's a lot less options out here". The themes were not independent, but rather all were linked by the threads of gendered sociocultural expectations and hegemonic femininity.
Distinct physical activity identities were exposed within the stories, shaped by parental and peer supports, personal ideals, sociocultural gender roles, and individual sense of agency surrounding physical activity engagement. Rural adolescent girls need both increased social and parental support to better navigate barriers of location and gender stereotypes that may be limiting their physical activity.
背景/目标：青春期女孩的身体活动水平远低于健康和幸福的最低推荐水平。与城市青少年相比，农村青少年的身体活动水平可能也较低，这使农村青春期女孩处于更大的劣势。这些低水平的原因是多方面的，包括但不限于年龄、地理位置以及围绕活动的性别刻板印象。对青春期女孩身体活动的定性调查可以更深入地了解特定人群所面临的关键障碍和支持因素，而目前这方面的文献有限。本研究探讨了居住在新斯科舍省农村的青春期女孩的身体活动经历，以更深入地了解这一人群的需求，为身体活动政策和规划提供参考。
采用海德格尔诠释现象学和女性主义后结构主义的拼贴方式，对来自新斯科舍省东部农村的6名11至13岁青春期女孩的半结构化访谈进行分析。
从访谈中确定了三个主要主题：（1）身体活动的样子取决于你的定义；（2）“当男孩们占据体育馆时你会做什么？”；（3）“有空间真的很好……但这里的选择少得多”。这些主题并非相互独立，而是都由性别化的社会文化期望和霸权女性气质联系在一起。
在这些故事中揭示了独特的身体活动身份，这些身份受到父母和同伴的支持、个人理想、社会文化性别角色以及围绕身体活动参与的个人能动性意识的塑造。农村青春期女孩需要更多的社会和父母支持，以更好地应对可能限制其身体活动的地理位置和性别刻板印象障碍。
