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Evaluating the MMLM Program

University of British Columbia. School of Kinesiology; University of British Columbia. Athletics and Recreation; University of British Columbia. Campus and Community Planning

The purpose of this study was to address the barriers that Asian female students experience while participating in physical activity (PA). Literature around this topic highlights the specific links between Asians - South Asian and East Asians, who show the lowest levels of PA among all other gender and ethnic groups (Yan & Cardinal, 2013). To illustrate, a study showed that South Asian’s are less likely to engage in PA, and simultaneously consume higher fat diets due to the lack of health education (Sriskantharajah & Kai, 2007; Vrazel et al., 2008). Additionally, our group partnered with the Move, More, Learn More (MMLM) program which is a 9-week program focused to teach participants about PA and health, through weekly classes (UBC, 2019). These classes consist of education classes and movement activities that are designed for Asian females who are interested to learn how to engage in healthy lifestyle choices and approach PA from a holistic perspective (UBC, 2019). Although this program is an excellent solution to the issue at hand, there are currently only 11 participants in the program (UBC, 2019). Therefore, to understand how this program could progress we considered possible barriers and issues highlighted in literature that may discourage Asian females from participating in MMLM. Our study surveyed a total of 59 Asian female individuals from UBC. We asked them a series of questions pertaining to their experiences, motivations, and perceptions of PA to gain a greater understanding of the underlying barriers and issues that continue to persist around this problem. Through our analysis, we found 3 significant points that contributed to PA rates within females - their cultural experiences, barriers to physical activities (PAs), and perceptions of PA. However, with the given data, we also highlighted several limitations that arose from this study. Limitations included time constraints, biased responses due to lack of diversity amongst types of asian ethnic groups that we surveyed, and incorrect survey techniques which yielded unclear responses. Nonetheless, we conclude our paper by providing tangible solutions that can be applied both as short- and long-term solutions towards the Move, More, Learn, More program and general UBC health promotion programs. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”

Report

eng

2020-08-12

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/75462

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/