A mental health paradox: Mental health was both a motivator and barrier to physical activity during the COVID-19 pandemic

  1. Maryam Yvonne Marashi
  2. Emma Nicholson
  3. Michelle Ogrodnik
  4. Barbara Fenesi
  5. Jennifer J. Heisz

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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the mental health, physical activity, and sedentary behavior of people worldwide. According to the Health Belief Model (HBM), health-related behavior is determined by perceived barriers and motivators. Using an online survey with 1669 respondents, we sought to understand why and how physical activity and sedentary behavior has changed by querying about perceived barriers and motivators to physical activity that changed because of the pandemic, and how those changes impacted mental health. The following results were statistically significant at p < .05. Consistent with prior reports, our respondents were less physically active (aerobic activity, -11%; strength-based activity, -30%) and more sedentary (+11%) during the pandemic as compared to 6-months before. The pandemic also increased psychological stress (+22%) and brought on moderate symptoms of anxiety and depression. Respondents’ whose mental health deteriorated the most were also the ones who were least active (depression r = -.21, anxiety r = -.12). The majority of respondents were unmotivated to exercise because they were too anxious (+8%,), lacked social support (+6%), or had limited access to equipment (+23%) or space (+41%). The respondents who were able to stay active reported feeling less motivated by physical health outcomes such as weight loss (-7%) or strength (-14%) and instead more motivated by mental health outcomes such as anxiety relief (+14%). Coupled with previous work demonstrating a direct relationship between mental health and physical activity, these results highlight the potential protective effect of physical activity on mental health and point to the need for psychological support to overcome perceived barriers so that people can continue to be physically active during stressful times like the pandemic.

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  1. Version published to 10.1371/journal.pone.0239244
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.03.280719: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Despite the valuable insights provided by this study; it is not without limitations. Our sample consisted mainly of young (18-29), highly educated (Bachelor’s degree or higher), female-identifying Canadian inhabitants which may limit the generalizability of the results. On average, our respondents were meeting the physical activity recommendations [16], which is not representative of the population at large. Moreover, a self-reported web-based survey was used to collect data and therefore response accuracy was unverifiable, and respondents required a device to access the internet; however, our large sample size would help minimize the impact of individual bias in reporting. In conclusion, our findings highlight the importance of physical activity in mental health. During stressful times, like the COVID-19 pandemic, people are motivated to be physically active for their mental health but may be too anxious or depressed to partake. Our results point to the need for additional psychological supports to help people maintain their physical activity levels during stressful times in order to minimize the psychological burden of the pandemic and prevent the development of a mental health crisis.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • No conflict of interest statement was detected. If there are no conflicts, we encourage authors to explicit state so.
    • No funding statement was detected.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.09.03.280719v1 on bioRxiv