Motivation plays an essential role in the daily activities of human beings. Human beings need to exercise their bodies in order to sustain a healthy cardio-vascular ability. In this process, motivation is vital in the success of carrying out physical activities especially in adolescents. Lack of motivation is the sole reason why people stop carrying out physical activities. Exercise should be considered as a menu and not a prescription. This paper focuses on the motivation for adolescents in physical activities, both internal and external motivation.
Overweight among adolescents and children is an immense problem in America. It has been researched and advised that the human body should exercise five times in a week for at least thirty minutes; this calls for proper planning by parents to encourage exercise. Parents should make reasonable efforts in limiting sedentary activities and promote more rigorous activities for them. Such processes include minimizing the time spent on television and computer; playing video games is the biggest problem for adolescents (McDonough, 2006). Reduction of the time they spend doing these sedentary activities decreases their body mass index, which is an obesity indicator. Reduced levels of BMI (body mass index) in adolescents come from reduced snacking and increased physical activity. These parents are expected to suggest different ways that children can adopt as entertainment. Simple activities like climbing up a stair case and walking have a substantial impact on body exercising.
Studies that relate fatness and physical activity among adolescents found that low body fat related to physical activities that were vigorous, not those of activities that were moderate. It showed that to achieve benefits of health; one needs to indulge in physical activity through exercising regularly at the right timing. In spite of the research done, concerning the relationship between health and exercising, a huge number of Canadian citizens have health problems arising from this. The motivation that an individual has towards exercising contributes abundantly in the person’s physical activity. As a matter of fact, various types of motivation have an influence on the process of exercises.
In schools, these adolescent students are to be exposed to programs that significantly impact on their activity rates (Jensen, 1998). Physical education as a program in the school curriculum works to introduce these individuals to early body management. It is studied that the earlier these routines are learnt, the greater the likelihood that they will be carried forward into adulthood. For instance, study showed that introducing activities like jumping into PE programs improved the density of bones and strength. Emphasis on team cooperation and self mastery is done by schools. Research shows that people are likely to give up a lot faster when their perceptions about success are based on peer comparison. The rate of maturity is different in people, genetically there is a component that affects these activities, but it is imperative for one to exercise.
These adolescents are motivated in many ways so as to take up the role in exercising their bodies. At home, parents may offer to engage in these activities with them; for example, taking a walk is vital in health building. When these adolescents go for a walk with their parents they do not look at it as a punishment, but rather as fun. Other activities, which are done at home, also form part of body exercising. Gardening or mowing are activities done regularly at home thus child involvement can prove beneficial.
It is notable that these adolescents feel the need to exercise, so creative measures are essentially important in doing this. To enable them adopt this art of body exercising they receive motivation through encouragement and even rewarding them. Consider a situation where an adolescent is advised to set a goal of running for thirty minutes and if they break this time a reward is given. In such a case, the child will work hard to beat the time set in order to achieve the reward.
The decision to change and adopt better and healthier behavior is not particularly easy, thus one that needs motivation. Behavior analyst James Prochaska put forward a theory, which has gained support from other related studies (Maddox, 1995). It says that before adopting a new behavior one has to cycle through a number of stages over time.
The first step in realizing the need for motivation in exercising is pre-contemplation. At this point, the subject has no desire for exercising; in fact they do not consider this option. Unaware of the benefits of exercising these subjects look at it as a huge hassle. One cannot opt for exercises when it is not even in their minds. One has to be introduced to the benefits before they consider it to be an option. At this stage, the victim seeks information about exercising from family members and friends.
After this step, the person enters the contemplation stage. Here, they start to consider undertaking exercises, but with a little help. They start to understand that doing exercises is beneficial to them at this stage, but accept that they cannot do it on their own. Misconceptions about exercising are addressed and the falsehoods. Misguiding information like exercising is painful and non-beneficial. They then choose from a wide range of activities to undertake, mostly they choose a straightforward plan.
Three studies on the beliefs about exercising were conducted on youth and children aged 11-19 years. Results showed that there was support for a multidimensional structure, which is invariant through gender and age. These adolescents believe that athletic ability is a gift, which is open to being improved and developed through incremental learning. These beliefs suggested that enjoying physical activities for the youth were directly predicted by orientation of tasks and beliefs. These findings show that the significance of beliefs in ability and goals in comprehending the determinants to the children’s activity.
Self-Determination Theory is considered to be one way towards motivation. It is a theory that has been applied frequently in the domain of exercises (Ryan, 2012). Its framework suggests that motivation in human beings lies in a continuum that represents changing autonomy degrees. This autonomy is looked at as self-determining behaviors or even initiated freely by the subject. This continuum is made up of both extrinsic and intrinsic aspects. In intrinsic motivation, motivation is usually obtained from the satisfaction and pleasure of being involved in the behavior (Ryan, 2012). For instance, intrinsically motivated swimmers enjoy the activity because of how their body feels in the water.
Extrinsic motivation has four regulations on behavior. These regulations reduce in the continuum of motivation from autonomous to controlling ones. The autonomous forms of extrinsic motivation include identified and integrated regulations. Integrated is represented through a victim’s acknowledgement that a particular behavior is the essential element of his/her values and identity. To explain this, a person who shows this integrated motivation might go swimming just because he or she believes to be a “˜swimmer’ and thereby this is their identity. Identified regulation is the motivation in performing and the behavior of the significance it has on the person and translates into desired results. An example of this is when people get involved in programs like resistance training in order to improve on the health of their bones through weight bearing procedures.
External and introjected (controlling) regulations are found in the less self-determined part of continuum motivation. Introjected regulations stand for the desire in obtaining rewards at an intrapersonal level. External regulations refer to that desire in obtaining rewards externally or avoiding punishments. Individuals who carry out physical activities due to external reasons do so with the aim of appeasing the people who cause the motivation. This is to say that these individuals engage in behaviors without motivation or maybe they would lack the intention in performing behavior (Sansone, 2000). An individual’s location on the continuum of self-determination can be obtained by level of satisfaction.
One contention about the theory is that these regulations and motivation are not adaptive, whereas intrinsic motivation gives motivational consequences, which are positive. Studies have shown that this contention has a link with disengagement in behavior and psychological conditions, which are negative. This intrinsic motivation has associations with persistence in doing a task and health. It is also recorded that those individuals who engage in regular exercises have a better and self-determined motivation.
Despite the findings, other individuals still persist in engaging in sport activities and exercises even when having motivation externally. This can be backed up by observing the relationship, which is there between motivation and obligatory exercise. Consider individuals who exercise regularly and frequently get higher scores on these identified regulations. Also, those who miss a session of exercise and experience emotional consequences that are negative perform highly on regulation, which is introjected.
After assessing 598 adolescent individuals who engaged in exercises, it was concluded that the frequent exercisers had increased levels of motivation that is intrinsic and the autonomy of regulations that are extrinsic when compared to the docile. To be precise, the female gender revealed even higher intrinsic levels of motivation and regulations, which are autonomous. Research done on this relationship gave results that pictured identified regulation to be the strongest of the exercises on both females and males.
The amount of motivation in exercises varies with the degree of body exercising. These adolescents need their daily body exercises for a healthy living. There is a limitation towards the research done on motivations that are intensity, frequency and duration of the exercises. These areas have not been studied or investigated on their own. Another limitation is that integrated regulation has no measure.
In conclusion, human beings need to exercise their bodies in order to sustain a healthy cardio-vascular ability. In this process, motivation is vital in the success of carrying out physical activities, especially in adolescents. Parents should make reasonable efforts in limiting sedentary activities and promote more rigorous activities for them. Such processes include minimizing the time spent on television and computer; it is important to mention that playing video games is the biggest problem for adolescents. Reduction of the time they spend doing these sedentary activities decreases their body mass index, which is an obesity indicator. Reduced levels of BMI in adolescents come from reduced snacking and increased physical activity. Self-Determination Theory is considered as one way towards motivation. It is a theory that has been applied frequently in the domain of exercises. External and introjected (controlling) regulations are found in the less self-determined part of continuum motivation.
Studies that relate fatness and physical activity among adolescents found that those low body fat related to physical activities were vigorous, but, not those of activities that were moderate. In schools, these adolescent students are to be exposed to programs that significantly impact on their activity rates. Physical education as a program in the school curriculum works to introduce these individuals to early body management. It is studied that the earlier these routines are learnt, the greater the likelihood that they will be carried forward into adulthood. Extrinsic motivation has four regulations on behavior. These regulations reduce in the continuum of motivation from autonomous to controlling ones. Studies have shown that this contention has a link with disengagement in behavior and psychological conditions, which are negative. Lastly, this intrinsic motivation is known to have associations with persistence in doing a task and health.