Skip to main content

The relationship between physical inactivity and mental wellbeing: Findings from a gamification-based community-wide physical activity intervention.

Author
Abstract
:

Mental ill health accounts for 13 per cent of total global disease burden with predictions that depression alone will be the leading cause of disease burden globally by 2030. Poor mental health is consistently associated with deprivation, low income, unemployment, poor education, poorer physical health and increased health-risk behaviour. A plethora of research has examined the relationship between physical activity and mental wellbeing; however, the influence of community-wide gamification-based physical activity interventions on mental wellbeing, to the authors' knowledge, is yet to be explored. In view of this paucity of attention, the current study examined the relationship between physical activity and mental wellbeing pre/post a community-wide, gamification-based intervention. The findings revealed that increases in mental wellbeing were significantly greater for the least active prior to the intervention, and a strong, positive correlation between increase in physical activity and increase in mental wellbeing was observed.

Year of Publication
:
1969
Journal
:
Health psychology open
Volume
:
5
Issue
:
1
Number of Pages
:
2055102917753853
Date Published
:
1969
DOI
:
10.1177/2055102917753853
Short Title
:
Health Psychol Open
Download citation