Physical activity and subjective well-being: the roles of self-esteem, physical activity enjoyment and motor difficulties

Physical activity (PA) is associated with favourable mental health constructs while mechanisms and possible moderators remain under debate. This paper examines self-esteem as a mediator of the relationship between PA and subjective well-being with PA enjoyment as a moderator and explores the role of motor difficulties in these associations. We expected that higher levels of PA would relate to gains in subjective well-being, with self-esteem partially explaining effects of this relationship and moderated by PA enjoyment. We tested this in two cross-sectional studies, which included manifold measures of PA and three aspects of subjective well-being (i.e., positive and negative affect, satisfaction with life). In study 1, a sample of N = 74 adults with low or high sports experience completed questionnaires, a 7-day activity diary, and wore an actigraph to measure their PA. Study 2 included a general sample of N = 241 adults who completed detailed online questionnaires. In both studies, PA was significantly associated with positive affect and satisfaction with life, and sometimes with negative affect. Self-esteem rarely served as a mediator and PA enjoyment did not moderate the relationship between PA and subjective well-being, across several domains of PA (i.e., actigraph, diary, self-report). However, we found that motor difficulties were highly correlated with several domains of PA, all domains of subjective well-being, and PA enjoyment. Motor difficulties also mediated associations between active hours and well-being outcomes. Taken together, motor skill proficiency may play a key role in the association between PA and wellbeing, where enjoyment of PA and self-esteem do not seem fundamental.