Promotion of physical activity participation among students at The University of Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania

Abstract

Sustainable Development Goal number three aims to ensure healthy lives and promote well- being for all at all ages. World Health Organization recommends Physical Activity (PA) promotions in every institution for each individual in maintaining their health and wellbeing. Different organizations, public and private respectively in the world, are striving to curb the dangers of inactivity behaviors among populations by enacting PA policies and implementation of the same. The purposeofthisstudy was to evaluate the strategies put to promote physical activity participation among the University of Dar esSalaam students in Tanzania. The objectives of the study were to: examine the utilization of university physical activity facilities and equipments at the University,establish how the university supports studentsin physicalactivity participation at the University,assess the university student’s perceptions of physical activity participation,examine the benefits, challenges, and solutions to students during physical activity participation. Social support theory of Israel Schrunm and social cognitive learning theory by Albert Bandura were employed in this study. The study embraced concurrent triangulation design of mixed methods which involved collecting and analyzing data at the same time. The study targeted 28,000 University students, 1 University sport and games coordinator, and 1 University social service director. The data weregenerated using interviews, observation,and questionnaires from 309participants.The findings indicate the number of strategies put by the university to promote Physical Activity (PA) participation such strategies include; enacting and implementing the sports policy, physical/instrumental support, emotional support, and informational support. Also, 70% of participants established that the support would enable them to participate fully in PA if were well provided by the University. However, 64% of the participants reported time for PA practices to be among the highly rated constraints for PA participation at the University. On the basis of the theory used in this study, to enable one to take part in PA there is a need for the provision of visible time in the university curriculum that will permeate full attention for PA for health benefits. However, the study concludes with the implication of the findings, indicating what is needed for the improvements in PA participation rates among individuals in higher learning education settings. Hence, the findings will help in the achievements of SDG and consequently achieve health target number