The Effect Of Exercise Motivation On The Level Of Body Self-Esteem In Female College Students:A Moderated Mediation Model

With the continuous development and progress of society and the improvement of living conditions,people’s concern for their own health has gradually increased.The level of body self-esteem reflects an individual’s self-evaluation of himself,that is,the degree of self-confidence and satisfaction shown in terms of physical self-worth,athletic ability,physical quality,physical condition and physical attractiveness.Since the body self-esteem level of female students is significantly lower than that of male students after entering university,which is completely opposite to the situation that it is higher than that of male students at a lower age,and the excessive attention to physical appearance of female university students leads to psychological problems such as anxiety or depression,and even bad behavioral habits such as dieting,all of which have an impact on the body self-esteem level,in order to improve the body self-esteem level of female university students,it is especially urgent to conduct a study on its related influencing factors In order to improve the level of body self-esteem of female college students,it is especially urgent to conduct research on the influencing factors.What is the process of influencing the level of body self-esteem of female college students? What are the effects of these effects? These are the questions that need to be addressed in this study.Based on the group dynamics theory and the existing literature,it is believed that the physical self-esteem level of female college students is influenced by the combination of environmental,psychological and behavioral effects.In the investigation of the influence of exercise motivation on female college students’ body self-esteem,there may be a mediating effect of physical activity and the campus sports environment plays a moderating role in the mediation process,so as to form a research hypothesis to be tested and construct a relevant theoretical model.The purpose of this study is to establish a theoretical basis for improving the level of body self-esteem of female college students and to use it to guide practice.In this study,female college students in some colleges and universities in Wuhan were used as the subjects,and the exercise motivation scale(MPAM-R)simplified version,physical self-esteem scale,International Physical Activity Scale(IPAS)short form and campus sports environment self-administered scale were used as the research tools.Factor analysis(EFA)and validation analysis(CFA)were used to test the reliability of each scale,and after excluding the data that did not meet the statistical requirements,a total of 665 valid questionnaires were collected.After analyzing and testing the research hypotheses using two software programs,SPSS25 and AMOS23.0,the research findings were as follows.(1)Exercise motivation has a direct positive and significant effect on the level of physical self-esteem of female college students(β=0.144,p=0.006);(2)Exercise motivation had a significant positive prediction on physical activity(β=0.290,p<0.001),physical activity had a significant positive prediction on physical self-esteem(β=0.154,p=0.006<0.01),the mediated effect value of bootstrap 5000 sampling test was 0.037,the upper and lower limits of the 95% confidence interval were [0.013,0.079],the indirect effect accounted for 20.44%>17%,the mediating effect existed;meanwhile exercise motivation positively predicted body self-esteem significantly(β=0.144.p=0.003<0.01),so the partial mediating effect of physical activity between exercise motivation and body self-esteem of female college students was significant;(3)Campus sports environment moderated the mediating effect of physical activity.campus sports environment moderated the effect of exercise motivation on physical activity(β=0.317,p=0.002<0.01),but not the effect of physical activity on physical self-esteem(β=0.025,p=0.186>0.05);at different grouping levels,the medium grouping level [LLCI=At different grouping levels,the campus sports environment had a significant positive moderating effect at the medium grouping level [LLCI=0.013,ULCI=0.073] and high grouping level [LLCI=0.031,ULCI=0.16].The campus sports environment did not have a significant moderating effect at the low grouping level [LLCI=-0.004,ULCI=0.034].This study is the first attempt to investigate the effect of exercise motivation on the level of physical self-esteem in a group of female college students from the perspective of the environment,and the moderated mediation model constructed in the study further examined the mechanism of the role of campus sports environment and physical activity in the effect of exercise motivation on the level of physical self-esteem,which has implications for the extension and proof of the theory.It is suggested by the conclusion that universities can guide students to form correct exercise motivation and participate in active physical activities from three aspects,namely environmental optimization,ideological correction and behavioral guidance,so as to improve the level of body self-esteem of female college students,and it is also suggested that in future studies,in-depth investigations on this topic can be carried out from different perspectives and vertically to continuously enrich the existing theoretical foundation.