Environmental and psychosocial variables correlated with leisure time physical activity among Kermanshah's high school female students

Because adolescence is a period of life that lifestyle behaviors in these courses can be transferred to the adult stage, hence, understanding the factors associated with adolescent's physical activity intervention strategies for the efficient creation of an active lifestyle is important. The purpose of this study was to test the environmental and psychosocial variables in predicting the leisure time physical activity behavior among a random sample of high school students in Kermanshah. Participants included 307 female students enrolled in the 1th to 3th high school grades. Four questionnaires were used to explore possible associations between environmental and psychosocial variables and physical activity among female adolescents. Data were analyzed using correlation analysis and structural equation modeling. Results indicated that all of the environmental and psychosocial variables showed statistically significant intercorrelations, and were clearly correlated with physical activity behavior. The proposed model had an excellent fit for exploring relationships among environmental and psychological variables with physical activity behavior.