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Four key themes emerged from the qualitative data: 1) Physical activity as a group disturbing behaviour; 2) Age-related ‘playful’ activities; 3) (In)activity anchors; 4) Activity related social contagion processes. The themes are presented in Figs. 1, 2, 3 and 4. Within these figures, the + signs relate to factors that... |
Fig. 1 |
Fig. 1 |
Overview of qualitative observations. Thematic Network One: Physical activity as a group disturbing behaviour |
Fig. 2 |
Fig. 2 |
Overview of qualitative observations. Thematic Network Two: Age-related ‘playful’ activity |
Fig. 3 |
Fig. 3 |
Overview of qualitative observations. Thematic Network Three: (In-) activity anchors |
Fig. 4 |
Fig. 4 |
Overview of qualitative observations. Thematic Network Four: Activity-related social contagion processes |
Theme One: Physical activity as a group-disturbing behaviour |
In both observational settings increased social interaction and communication was associated with more sedentary behaviour. For many adults observed in groups across both sites, the pools represented places of rest, dominated by sitting, talking, and eating, with large groups (≥4 people) particularly characterised by s... |
Physically inactive groups tend to verbally communicate a lot. The groups position themselves almost as a united structure. On the beach: often on chairs, sitting next to each other and talking vividly. In the water: they often form closed groups, arranged in circles. They dwell in the water for hours without any disce... |
(Champagne Pond Pool) |
Adults who came to the spaces by themselves were more engaged in physical activity than when they attended with their peers. For example, the researchers observed one woman, who attended the Entringen Pool over several days. When she attended the pool alone, the researchers observed that she engaged in much more physic... |
A woman (approx. late twenties, slightly overweight) and her physical activity behaviour could be observed on several days in two consecutive weeks. The following observations were thus subsequently recorded: |
• (2×) on her own: 20–40 min. swimming of lanes on a moderate-high intensity [+10 min. of sunbathing] |
• (3×) together with one friend (same age, female, sporty athletic): 2 × 15–20 min swimming of lanes on a moderate intensity [+ more than 30 min. of sunbathing] |
• (1×) together with two friends (one friend above, the other: same age, female, overweight): 1 × 10–20 min swimming of lanes on a moderate intensity [+ very long sunbathing] |
• o (2×) together with a group of five (all approx. same age, male and female): hardly any swimming, maximum of 2–4 lanes, mostly lively discussion in group, eating, and sunbathing). |
(Entringen Pool) |
In both Hawai’i and Germany, physical activity was more likely to be undertaken with smaller groups of individuals (≤2–3 people). Individuals who planned to be vigorously active usually came to the pool or the beach on their own or with a friend/partner in order to swim. These individuals came to the pool with the spec... |
Very physically active individuals are mostly alone or in groups of two. The purpose of their visit is almost always connected to physical activity – mostly vigorous. Except for a towel and snorkel utensils they do not bring anything, and they hardly stay longer than the time in which they are physically active. |
(Champagne Pond Pool) |
If members of a larger group wanted to be physically active they, thus, usually ‘split off’ from the group, as if they did not want to disturb the rest of the group. This held particularly true for very active individuals, even when a group started being physically active together: |
A group of three elderly (two women and one man) come together to the pool and start swimming lanes (moderately). After a while the man separates from the group and swims on his own (faster). |
(Entringen Pool) |
In both sites, if all members of a group were physically active together, we often could identify a strong influence of unspoken group rules on the group’s behaviour. One such unspoken rule appeared to be the decreasing of physical activity as demonstrated in the following observation of a group of three women in Entri... |
Three women swim their lanes on a moderate to high intensity separately in the pool. Especially one woman swims very fast. Then one woman joins the very fast woman, they start to talk a little, and swim their lanes together. The speed decreases instantly. When the third woman joins the group, the speed becomes even slo... |
(Entringen Pool) |
In a few cases, active group members tried to integrate the physically more inactive members by adjusting their activity level to the capacity of the ‘weakest’ member. From this perspective, the spread of inactivity (or less activity) ensured that the less active members of the group were not excluded from the activity... |
A group of three middle-aged men go to the pool. Two of them (normal-weight) start swimming lanes on a moderate level while the third (overweight) stays passively at the edge of the pool. After two lanes the two swimmers come back to their friend and stay with him at the pool’s edge. |
[They leave pool and come back later for a second swim] |
This time they all swim a couple of lanes together, but in a considerably slower pace than before, adjusting their speed to the slowest. When the slow swimmer leaves the group and the pool, the two remaining pick up their ‘normal’ speed again. |
(Entringen Pool) |
We also could observe ritualistic customs associated with certain group behaviours: |
Many groups set up their equipment ritualistically: first, they set up their seating arrangements, chairs and sun-loungers, then usually a period of rest follows. |
(Champagne Pond Pool) |
Theme Two: Age-related ‘playful’ activity |
In contrast to adult groups, conviviality in children and younger adolescent groups did not hinder physical activity at all. In contrast to adults, social communication and play held children’s groups together, and was the norm, even in very large groups of children: |
For children and younger adolescents, the nature of conviviality is exactly the opposite as for adults. For them conviviality is almost always connected to being physically active. Conviviality is usually expressed by showing, imitating, playing together, teasing, or competing physically. Social interaction is establis... |
(Champagne Pond Pool) |
Interestingly, in our observed cases verbal communication was a motivating stimulus to physical activity in children. While in adults all physical activity, and especially vigorous exercise, lessened or stopped when the group members had lively discussions, verbal communication in groups of children/adolescents was an ... |
A group of three boys are playfully active (jumping, swimming) at the pool’s edge: one boy says, “You should try a somersault under water! That’s so cool under water!” After that the group further explores the medium water, “Look! How I can walk in the water!” A little while later the group is trying different jumps in... |
(Entringen Pool) |
What one can immediately notice in this example is the intrinsically motivated and expressive nature of children when they are engaged in activity. Children expressed their enjoyment and fun attributing it directly to the activity at hand (jumping, diving, and experiencing the water). This coupling of intrinsically ver... |
In contrast to children, activity stimulating verbal communication in adults was mostly referred to health or body shape and had an explicit extrinsic motivational content. Motivational statements were predominantly functional as adults often struggled to maintain long and/or playful activity periods. The following exa... |
While a senior elderly woman is moderately swimming her lanes, a middle-aged woman arrives at the pool. The older woman obviously knows her, slows down and greets her thus, “So you managed to get here after all!?” The middle–aged woman stops and replies, “Yes, I was able to pull myself together in order to swim a coupl... |
(Entringen Pool) |
Except in children and young adolescents, boisterous playful activity was only observable in groups of young, mostly male adults who were active as part of partying. In these groups, casual verbal comments played a significant role to keep the activity running. |
A group of young men is standing in the water (up to the hips), talking to each other and drinking beer. One of the group members suddenly caught a football and said to the others, “Come on, you lazy bones, don’t fall asleep”. The group plays for almost an hour, throwing and catching passes. The group members stimulate... |
(Champagne Pond Pool) |
Theme Three: (In-)activity anchors |
In both Hawai’i and Germany, we could identify ‘anchors’ which either ‘hooked’ group members to a permanent position and limited both their activity radius and intensity (inactivity anchors) or ‘hooked’ them to an ongoing activity (activity anchors). There were three main (in)activity anchors. The first was the ‘domest... |
The more a group ‘furnished’ their location at the pool with equipment such as chairs, coolers, or barbecues, the more inactive and passive its members tended to be. This was especially the case at the Champagne Pond Pool: |
Many groups “domesticate and furnish” their site with pick-up trucks, tents, and barbecues. In these sites, visitors drink beer, eat, and are stuck to their chairs. Preparing food and eating is downright celebrated and has a high social function. |
(Champagne Pond Pool) |
In Germany, this ‘domestication’ and ‘furnishing’ was less frequent, the equipment was mostly limited to chairs and sun loungers, eating and drinking was more ‘functional’. Nonetheless, it seemed to hinder the activity of the groups significantly. |
Obesity also functioned as a second inactivity anchor. Before we explain obesity as an inactivity anchor it is important to note that there was a difference in the way obese people ‘presented’ their body between the two research sites. In Hawai’i, obese people presented their body quite openly without any inhibitions, ... |
In weight-mixed male groups, normal-weight members often imitate the activity behaviour of passive overweight members. The activity level here is very low (i.e. mostly sitting passively). This is already the case when there is only one overweight individual in the group who is very passive. This effect is even more dis... |
(Champagne Pond Pool) |
In the above described examples the minority, i.e. the passive overweight members, sat and chatted while the normal weight members did not express the desire of being physically active. Inactivity therefore ‘hooked’ the rest of the group to their position. The only exception for this phenomenon that could be observed w... |
Young obese men show the same level of activity as their peers if they are part of a young, very athletic, male group. Such groups are usually very active, throwing balls and doing short jumping in the water. In these cases, the young obese men play a very relevant role, particularly when the group plays cannonball lan... |
(Champagne Pond Pool) |
A minority of obese women in an otherwise male, normal weight group also did not have a limiting influence on the physical activity of the rest of the group. However, in contrast to the young obese men, the obese women themselves did not get ‘hooked’ by the activity of the majority. They were, therefore, only very rare... |
Two obese women and four normal weight men are together at the beach. All of a sudden the four men simply separate from the two women and leave them behind in order to be active. The women stay back, talk, and prepare food. When the men come back, they do sit only for a while in order to eat. Yet, they quickly leave ag... |
(Champagne Pond Pool) |
Obese women only had a limiting influence on the activity of connected others if they were in partnerships with normal weight men. Such couples rarely became active, and if so, the intensity of their activity was very low and did not interrupt their conversation. |
Couples of obese women and normal weight men are usually inactive, taking a sunbath, talking or reading. They only rarely have a barbecue, the level of ‘domestication’ is rather low. Eating is mostly restricted to snacks, such as chips. In active periods, both partners are usually active together. The women often use t... |
(Champagne Pond Pool) |
For obese men, however, a younger slim or normal weight female partner could function as an activity anchor. In these cases, the physical activity of the obese men generally seemed to be aimed at living up to the partner’s (supposed) expectations, like the following example illustrates: |
A couple of young pensioners is swimming lanes. The husband (very overweight) takes a break at the edge of the pool and explains to another pool visitor: “40 lanes – ah yes – you know in order to stay in shape. But my wife does only 20.” He adds laughingly: “but she doesn’t need to!” (The wife seems younger and is sign... |
(Entringen Pool) |
A third social anchoring mechanism was observed in sitting parents who came to the pool with their children. |
Mothers are often sitting in groups together on the sunbathing lawn while the children play and romp around them. These mothers often focus on their conversation which seems to have an ‘inhibitory effect’ on the children’s activity. During the stay, the playing children come back to ‘the anchor’ at regular intervals as... |
(Entringen Pool) |
Moreover, parents and adults who accompanied their children to the child specific pool alone also had an activity hindering effect on their children if they were not active themselves. |
Parents who accompany their children to the pool alone, usually simply sit down at the pool’s edge on a bench, passively observing. This quite often has the effect that the children’s radius of movement is highly limited to the proximity of the sitting parents. |
(Entringen Pool) |
In the first case the parental activity hindering effect seems to be caused by the lack of the received attention which limits the children’s activity. In stark contrast to this lack of parental attention, the limitation of activity in the second case seems to be rather caused by overprotection instead. Nonetheless, in... |
Theme Four: Activity related social contagion processes |
Physical activity can spread from one group to another without any apparent verbal communication or other conscious motivational stimuli. This was frequently observed both at the Entringen Pool and at the Champagne Pond Pool: |
Although there are many children present at the pond today, there is only very little physical activity to be recorded. The children are playing quietly at the water or sitting besides adults, playing individual games. This state goes on for quite a while. Suddenly one group of children starts playing tag games in the ... |
(Champagne Pond Pool) |
In this recorded example, the first group of children acts as the stimulus for the imitative actions of the other groups (recipients). Physical activity, here in the form of tag games, appears to spread between the groups. A very similar effect was observed and recorded on multiple occasions by the data-collectors at t... |
This study aimed to investigate the impact of group based behaviours on the physical activity or inactivity of individuals in two settings in Germany and Hawai’i. In particular, we were interested in how social group dynamics influenced the physical activity of groups members; and specifically whether there were specif... |
Before discussing the results, it is important to highlight some limitations associated with this study. First, the observers in Hawai’i were German and may not have culturally appropriately interpreted the behaviours of a predominantly Polynesian population. To overcome this author (HB) was from Hawai’i and provided t... |
Based on our original research questions, the findings from this study raise three points for discussion. Firstly, group structures seem to play a very significant role regarding the activity of the group members. The social environment clearly shapes an individual’s behavioural output [36]. This holds also true for ph... |
We also observed that physical activity level is moderated by so called ‘social (in)activity anchors’, such as domestication, obesity, and, in children, sitting parents. In this regard, mechanisms of social contagion are observable, such as the unconscious mimicry of the behaviour of significant others [30] or group dy... |
Secondly, there is a difference in the way adults and children are physically active. While adults had very structured forms of physical activity, children were more spontaneous and played and ‘celebrated’ physical activity in form of playful, boisterous group activity. A possible explanation might therefore be that ch... |
Among adult groups, physical activity tended therefore to be an unsocial and functional activity. In other words, adults seem to have lost their sense of joyful, physically active play. Physical activity in adulthood appears to have rather functional purposes and is limited to shorter intense intervals, even in leisure... |
A potential strategy could be to use fun and spontaneous activities for people of all ages and body-weights in order to engage them in more activity at leisure settings. An example could be ‘discovery paths’ in leisure settings which invite all visitors to actively explore the water, the beach, and the area together in... |
Finally, although we expected that cultural settings would significantly influence physical activity behaviours in different groups across the two sites, we found only few marked differences in influencing social factors between Germany or Hawai’i. The most evident culture-related behavioural difference was the way in ... |
In order to tackle physical inactivity it may be vital to target the social environment of inactive people, i.e. the structures of the groups to which inactive individuals assign themselves. In this context, one of the main problems will be the fact that for adults fun and wellbeing appear to be not an essential part o... |
Availability of data and materials |
Data is not publicly available. For further information about the relevant observational notes (in German) please contact the corresponding author. |
Authors’ contributions |
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