Table 3 Factors that influence current levels of physical activity

(1) Friends and peers

“You’d probably make more friends when joining your clubs and things” (G, LA)

“Erm like my friends go to football and all that as well, and I would hang out with them and they play football all the time as well- so it helps me” (B, LA)

“Aye like I wouldn’t do a lot of stuff, if I was playing like a football match or whatever, I wouldn’t want to play against like another team cause I’d be really worried, like I’d be really worried about what they think of me” (G, LA)

“She can be like really like competitive; she can like hurt other people by being that competitive. Like saying aw I’m gonna win, and then she would flaunt it in peoples’ faces and stuff” (G, LA)

“There are some people who are too physically active and like to sort of shove it in your face” (B, LA)

(2) Family

“My like sister and my like mum are always like pushing, my mum like pushes me to do like different sports” (G, LA)

“Be good sometimes if they did that sport sometimes they’d be like forcing you to do it and sometimes you’re good at it so they’re encouraging you to do it” (B, HA)

“My mum would go out walking and she’s always encouraging me to go out walking as well” (G, LA)

“Well if you have a family member or someone who is very unactive, they don’t hardly do anything, it might encourage you that it would be a great idea to do something because they’re not doing anything, and you notice how, I suppose, how unhappy or something they are and how it’s affecting them not doing anything so then you would want to do it so you don’t end up like” (B, LA)

(2) Other people

“See I’d be the type being really, you know like saying ‘aw I can’t do it, what’s the point in doing it if I can’t do it’. So then she’d be like, tell me be really positive, tell me ‘aw you can, you may as well just try’” (G, LA)

“Well when you see them on TV like sometimes you might think that you want to be as good as them someday” (B, HA)

“Like if they’re good at it, like it makes it look good then so you want to be as good as them” (B, HA)

“Friendly teachers, friendly and good teachers that will teach you how to do it well I suppose, and they don’t force you to do it, and I suppose more welcoming if you haven’t done it before and your bad at it” (B, HA)

(3) Consequences of not taking part

“It means you generally eat more, because you’re sitting in the house and you want to do something so you go eat something” (G, LA)

“You’d be very unsociable, say like you’d just kind of want to stay in the house all the time and not really do anything, like go outside or anything” (G, HA)

(4) Changing priorities

“I used to like go to a lot of after school things, I don’t really like after school things as much anymore because I’m really tired at the end of the day and I don’t want to go and do more physical activity” (G, LA)

“Or there’s other things that you would want to do and prioritise and then, you know, activity just falls off the list” (B, LA)

(5) Cost and access to resources

“I don’t, I don’t know whether this is right or not but I think people would probably be more attracted to it if it was quite cheaper or it was free” (G, LA)

“Erm like stuff… that are kinda near to you like, really the only real thing near to me is football but I don’t really like it so” (B, LA)

“Cause then you can try it and if you don’t like if you don’t like it but you have to buy stuff for it then you feel like it’s a waste of money” (G, LA)