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Changes in physical activity, weight and wellbeing outcomes among attendees of a weekly mass participation event: a prospective 12-month study
journal contribution
posted on 2018-11-02, 15:03 authored by Clare StevinsonClare Stevinson, Mary HicksonBackground Mass participation events are recognized as a way of engaging low-active individuals in health-enhancing physical activity, but there is a need to investigate the sustained effects on behaviour and health. This study aimed to examine changes in self-reported physical activity, weight and wellbeing over 12 months in participants of parkrun, a weekly mass participation 5 km running event. Methods New parkrun registrants (n = 354) completed self-reported measures of physical activity, weight, happiness and stress, at
registration, 6 months and 12 months. Objective data on attendance and fitness (i.e. run dates and finishing times) were obtained from the parkrun database. Results Overall physical activity levels were high at baseline, but significantly increased over the first 6 months, before declining. By 12 months, weekly physical activity was 39 min higher than baseline. Significant reductions in body mass index were observed over 12 months, with a weight loss of 1.1% in the whole sample, and 2.4% among overweight participants. Modest increases in happiness and decreases in perceived stress were recorded. Run times suggested a 12% improvement in fitness during the study. Conclusion Significant changes in weight, fitness and wellbeing outcomes indicate the public health benefits of regular participation in parkrun.
History
School
- Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences
Published in
Journal of Public HealthVolume
41Issue
4Pages
807–814Citation
STEVINSON, C. and HICKSON, M., 2018. Changes in physical activity, weight and wellbeing outcomes among attendees of a weekly mass participation event: a prospective 12-month study. Journal of Public Health, doi:10.1093/pubmed/fdy178.Publisher
Oxford University Press on behalf of Faculty of Public Health © The AuthorsVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Acceptance date
2018-09-18Publication date
2018-10-08Copyright date
2019ISSN
1741-3850eISSN
1741-3842Publisher version
Language
- en