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Table 3 Major themes and sub-themes of barriers to and supports of physical activity with representative quotations arising from focus group discussions with multiethnic SED mothers

From: Individual, social and environmental factors influencing physical activity levels and behaviours of multiethnic socio-economically disadvantaged urban mothers in Canada: A mixed methods approach

Individual factors

Barriers

Lack of energy and motivation

“…All your energy (goes) to the kids, only them.”

“…free time from kids; we can read something, read some books, listen to music or watch movies…”

 

Body image

“Once I became a teenager I had cramps every time…because I didn’t want to mess up my hair, I didn’t want to change in front of the girls.”

“Here I come and I’m just in big sweater and pants and then I don’t feel comfortable next time I go to the group right because I feel like I stick out.”

 

Physical skills

“some of us don’t know how to swim so we let the kids go in the pool and then watch while they’re swimming.”

 

Priority

“Someone has to take initiative so we can get together and discuss how to improve our daily life”

 

Guilt

.I tell the kids I’m going to lose weight (by doing exercise), I never lose weight; they (children) told you, already you are mom, why you going to lose weight? You’re not becoming a good mom anymore; you just think about yourself, you’re selfish.”

Supports

Health benefits

“to lose weight is a motivator” (to be physically active)…

“Walking is a practical sport because we can do lots with it.”

“Physical activity helps me to sleep better”

“physical activity helps me….physically and mentally to be happy…”

“Right now I’m a diabetic, my sugars are very high, I’m trying to get my sugars down and my husband is trying to get me back to the gym…”

Social factors

Barriers

Family expectations

Yeah, back home we always provide, as a mom, give, give, give. Expectations is too high, expectations as a mom is very high, so that’s how they expect, so if you say I want to go to school, I want to exercise, oh my God there is an issue.”

“In our culture, when you become a mom, your life is ended”.

 

Weight-related teasing

“As the mom ok sometimes you feel, ok your mom is fat, because of you the kids may bully, your mom is chubby, look at your mom. There was a rap song saying: look at your mother, she’s fat..the child is six, seven, eight years old, he can get defensive about when somebody sees it’s his mom, like for example I have a seven year-old who always says mommy don’t come to the school because some of my friends says that you are fat.”

 

Culture/religion

“…I know back home all my brothers know how to bike, I never learned. Even if we wear pants we don’t even know how to ride bikes, because this was wrong”

“In my country, when a girl like me wanted to do sports and she did it, one man said: since when did you lose your ‘Indian-ness’?”

 

Lack of financial resources

“. some people they don’t have a bus pass; they can’t afford to buy it. If your budget is low, how’re you going to do that?”

“Clothing, yeah clothing, it’s expensive; because we don’t wear the swimming suits…”

 

Lack of spousal support

“Husbands don’t know that kind of information that we need sometimes help, mental help, sometimes I feel I have two kids, oh my god I need some time for me, at least thirty minutes, I want to do something for me”

“Like my husband, he does anything he wants, he has plenty of time after work, he has groups where he exercise, whereas me I’m stuck with the kids all the time. No obligations for the man to look after the kids. So that we do need a lot of support as a mom and the children.”

Supports

Family activities

“Like if you have kids, you have to teach them, they study at home, they need more activity. Playing together, riding bicycles, walking, dancing, yoga, swimming; shopping, walking the malls, traveling.”

“It’s something to do with our kids, to do it together, like with the baseball with the kids, it’s more fun”

 

Traditional Activities

Like traditional dancing, I’d like to learn, I’ve got my daughter, I’d like to teach her, and I’ve got me, get myself going again.”

 

Family support

“I go to my parents’ cottage. The kids are at the beach while I do other activities.”

 

Friends’ support

If you have friends that support you, that want to do it with you, that helps you to do those physical activities”

Environmental factors

Barriers

Financial Costs

“…when we want to register our kids or even me and my husband, a family you know, it’s too expensive to go to the community centre…”

 

Stigma with low-income subsidies

“There are some but you have to be below the poverty level to have access.”

 

Lack of transportation

“It depends also sometimes transportation; you need bus…if it’s so far. Yeah, too far or not on a bus route, or four buses/too many buses to get there”

 

Unsafe environments

“. even with the community around here like, the areas are so, you don’t trust to walk at night…a lot of the places I wouldn’t go out by myself, down here it’s just kind of - you don’t know”

 

Poor climate

“The summer, soccer you can do but the winter you stay at home”

“.sometimes, especially in storm (winter), I stay 2,3,4 days at home, I can’t go outside….”,

 

Lack of Multicultural Resources

“the problem is that I do not speak English, only French and this makes communication very difficult..”

 

Lack of Childcare

“Because you can participate more when you know that you have child care”

“… they used to have child care and then had exercise on the site and they stopped that and that was a big loss for us so most of the mothers stopped going there.”

Supports

Professional Support

“For me, you need a program, a person that gives you support but support with experience, professional support”

 

Availability of subsidies

“The last minute club, its good, if nobody registers for that particular course then we get it for free…”

“I know YMCA have good subsidy for low income people.”

 

Presence of Cultural Community Centres

“Everybody; they make you feel welcome, you don’t get that sense of clique, intruder feeling when you come in and you’re new; everybody’s welcome; no judgment.”

“I need the socialization; when we do things here, we play baseball, we go swimming, we do all this stuff …”

 

Outreach and Networking

“And then if I come across other native people, the single moms, or they don’t even have to be single, I’ll say oh my god, down at the centre we have the blah blah blah and that’s where word of mouth comes in.”

“A sense of community, trust…our nativeness…a sense of security… when I say my band, no one asks me what instrument I play…”