Gyuil Lee

Introduction: Aggressive behavior is a common and important externalizing problem during childhood and adolescence, closely associated with poor social adjustment, subpar academic performance, and adverse mental health outcomes. Although physical exercise has been regarded as a viable nonpharmacological intervention to reduce aggressive behavior, the relative effects of different types of exercise interventions remain unclear. This study used a systematic review and network meta-analysis to compare how different types of physical exercise interventions affect aggression-related outcomes in children and adolescents. Methods: A systematic literature search across PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure from database inception to December 10, 2025 identified randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and non-randomized controlled trials (non-RCTs) evaluating the effects of physical exercise interventions on aggression-related outcomes in children and adolescents. Based on motor skill characteristics and intervention composition, the interventions were classified into open-skill exercise (OSE), closed-skill exercise (CSE), and multicomponent exercise (MCE). Outcome measures comprised overall aggression, anger, hostility, physical aggression, and verbal aggression. Random effects models were used to conduct conventional pairwise meta-analyses and network meta-analyses, expressing effect sizes as standardized mean differences (SMDs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Surface under the cumulative ranking curve (SUCRA) values determined intervention rankings, and consistency tests, meta-regression, and sensitivity analyses evaluated finding robustness. Results: This analysis included 25 studies involving 2,772 children and adolescents. Compared with control conditions, physical exercise interventions significantly mitigated negative aggression-related outcomes, including hostility (SMD = −0.37, 95% CI: −0.62 to −0.13), anger (SMD = −0.64, 95% CI: −1.00 to −0.27), overall aggression (SMD = −0.87, 95% CI: −1.36 to −0.39), and physical aggression (SMD = −0.70, 95% CI: −0.91 to −0.49). Conversely, the mitigation of verbal aggression lacked statistical significance (SMD = −0.05, 95% CI: −0.36 to 0.25). For outcomes permitting treatment network construction, the global consistency test indicated no significant inconsistency. SUCRA ranking results revealed that MCE ranked highest for hostility (79.4%) and physical aggression (74.7%), CSE ranked highest for anger (85.9%), and OSE ranked highest for overall aggression (84.4%). Meta-regression identified no significant moderators. Conclusion: Physical exercise interventions may help improve certain aggression-related outcomes in children and adolescents, although the effects are not entirely consistent across different outcomes. These findings suggest that exercise modalities possessing different skill characteristics may differ in their effects on hostility, anger, overall aggression, and physical aggression. Consequently, practitioners designing interventions for aggressive behavior in children and adolescents may consider the target outcome when selecting exercise programs. Given the substantial between-study heterogeneity and scarce head-to-head comparative evidence, additional high-quality RCTs are needed to validate these findings further. Systematic review registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/view/CRD42026133695 , identifier (CRD420261336959).

Background: Adolescents’ moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) levels are declining, and peer climate and motivational factors in physical education (PE) classes are closely associated with MVPA, but the interaction mechanisms among them remain to be further clarified. This study aimed to examine the relationship between perceived peer motivational climate and MVPA during PE classes and to test the dual-path mediating roles of autonomous and controlled motivation. Methods: Participants included 596 students (313 boys and 283 girls in grades 7–9) from five middle schools in Daegu, South Korea. MVPA levels were measured using triaxial accelerometers, while peer motivational climate and student motivation were assessed via questionnaires. Results: First, peer motivational climate, motivation, and MVPA levels differed significantly by gender and grade, with girls and higher-grade students scoring lower in task-involving climate, autonomous motivation, and MVPA. Second, a task-involving climate significantly predicted MVPA, and both autonomous motivation and controlled motivation served as mediators in this relationship. In contrast, an ego-involving climate significantly predicted MVPA, in which only controlled motivation played a mediating role, while autonomous motivation did not show a significant mediating effect. Overall, the negative effect of ego-involving climate was stronger than the positive effect of task-involving climate. Conclusion: It may be beneficial in physical education to consider girls and higher-grade students, while reducing exposure to ego-involving climates and fostering task-involving climates, which may be associated with higher levels of MVPA.

Objective: With smartphones deeply integrated into college students’ daily lives, Problematic Smartphone Use (PSU) may become a significant risk factor affecting Physical Activity (PA). Based on self-regulation theory and self-construal theory, this study aims to examine the relationship between PSU and college students’ PA, and further investigate the chain mediation effects of Self-Control (SC) and Exercise Procrastination (EP), as well as the moderating roles of Independent Self-Construal (IND) and Interdependent Self-Construal (INT). Methods: A large-sample questionnaire survey was conducted, collecting 1,049 valid responses from college students across four provinces in China. Established scales were used for measurement. SPSS 31.0 and AMOS 31.0 were employed for descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis. Two moderated chain mediation models were constructed, with the moderating variable being IND (Model 1) and INT (Model 2), respectively. Direct, indirect, and moderating effects were examined using a bootstrap procedure with 5,000 resamples. PROCESS Model 1 was used to generate slope plots for high and low levels of IND and INT. Results: PSU negatively predicted college students’ PA. The single mediation effect of SC was not statistically significant, while the single mediation effect of EP was significant. A significant chain mediation pathway from SC to EP was identified. Self-Construal (Independent vs. Interdependent) significantly moderated the link between SC and EP in the chain mediation process. Conclusion: PSU is closely associated with insufficient PA among college students. This association may be explained by a sequential psychological-behavioral mechanism in which lower SC is linked to increased EP. Self-Construal serves as a boundary condition in this process, indicating that the association between PSU and PA may vary depending on individuals’ self-understanding.

This study examined the relationship between basic psychological need fulfillment (BPNF) and school happiness in relation to the intensity of physical activity exhibited by adolescents during physical education (PE) classes and their obesity levels. We measured BPNF and school happiness using a questionnaire administered to 600 junior high school students. After exclusion, 532 questionnaires were analyzed. A 3D accelerometer (GT3X model) from Actigraph and the body mass index were used to measure physical activity intensity and obesity, respectively. The findings of this study indicate that BPNF and school happiness were significantly associated with physical activity intensity. Specifically, students who engaged in high-intensity physical activity exhibited higher levels of BPNF and school happiness. Additionally, BPNF and school happiness were not significantly related to obesity, whereas a significant relationship was observed between BPNF, school happiness, and the interaction between physical activity intensity and obesity level. This finding implies that adolescents with higher physical activity intensity and lower obesity reported higher levels of BPNF and school happiness. These findings suggest that physical activity intensity during PE classes significantly influences emotional development. Therefore, incorporating moderate-to-vigorous physical activity into PE may serve as a strategy for promoting emotional development in adolescents.

This study aimed to compare physical activity patterns according to the type of physical education by sex and body mass index categories among Korean adolescents. We analyzed physical activity using an accelerator in a physical education class among Korean middle school students (1305 boys and 1328 girls). An independent t-test and regression analysis were conducted to compare differences between the obesity groups by sex. As game play time increased, light activity increased in boys in the normal group. Among the girls, sedentary time decreased in the normal, at-risk for obesity, and obese groups. Moderate activity increased in the underweight, normal, at-risk for obesity, and obese groups. Vigorous activity increased in the normal group. As free activity time increased, sedentary time also increased in the normal, at-risk for obesity, and obese groups. Vigorous activity decreased in the normal group. Among the girls, sedentary time increased in the underweight group. Light activity decreased in the underweight and normal groups. A strategy to increase physical activity during physical education class is to increase game play time for girls and decrease free activity time for boys.

Excessive focus on appearance or lookism requires social attention as it can have negative consequences on individuals’ psychological and mental states related to health and sustainable social practice. As part of a healthy and sustainable social practice, this study tests the mechanism of enhancing appearance-related health campaign’s effectiveness through the O1-S-O2-R framework. Participants were 220 Korean college students with being 141 male and 78 female and they completed an on-line survey. The result of SEM analyses confirmed the O1-S-O2-R model. As the result of hypotheses testing, health campaign contents suggesting anti-lookism and diverse beauty standards have attracted the attention of people whose parents conversed using relatively less healthy-appearance talk when growing up and who had higher self-objectification scores with body surveillance and body shame. Interpersonal conversations and thoughts on the media content played a mediating role in the model, while health campaigns had a higher persuasive effect on campaign evaluation and the behavior intention of spreading the campaign’s content. Implications of the findings were discussed regarding health campaign designers and individuals, including parents, in education settings.

Mean±SD, *<.05, **<.01, ***<.001