Students’ physical activity intensity and sedentary behaviour by physical self-concept profiles: a latent profile analysis

Aims of this study were to identify student clusters in physical appearance, sport competence,global physical self-concept and self-esteem, and to examine whether different physical selfconceptgroups differ in their moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and sedentarybehaviour. Participants of the study were 211 boys and 183 girls aged 13-16 years. MVPAand sedentary behaviour were monitored by GT3X accelerometers during seven days.Participants’ physical self-concept was measured by the short Physical Self-DescriptionQuestionnaire. Latent profile analyses revealed a four-cluster solution: 1) “low sportcompetence, moderate global physical self-concept and self-esteem, and high physicalappearance”; 2) “high sport competence, moderate global physical self-concept and selfesteem,and low physical appearance”; 3) “moderate sport competence, global physical selfconcept,self-esteem, and physical appearance”, and 4) “moderate sport competence andglobal physical self-concept, high self-esteem, and low physical appearance”. Multivariateanalysis of variance showed differences in MVPA between boys’ in clusters 2 and 3 (p <.05). Students’ MVPA levels differ by physical self-concept profiles