Physical activity, physical literacy-related attitudes, and life satisfaction among adolescents in England: a survey-weighted analysis

Background Physical activity is associated with adolescent wellbeing, but activity volume does not capture adolescents’ enjoyment, confidence, perceived ease, or understanding of participation. We examined whether a count of strongly endorsed physical literacy-related attitudes was associated with life satisfaction beyond physical activity level among adolescents in England. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional, survey-weighted secondary analysis of the Active Lives Children and Young People Survey 2023–2024. The analytic sample comprised 58,148 adolescents in school Years 7–11 (approximately ages 11–16). Life satisfaction was scored from 0 to 10. Physical activity was an official survey-derived four-category measure based on moderate-to-vigorous activity across the previous week. The physical literacy-related attitude count summed five official strong-endorsement indicators covering enjoyment, confidence, perceived ease, understanding of benefits, and knowledge of how to participate and improve. Models adjusted for gender, school year group, the standard 2023–2024 Family Affluence Scale, ethnicity, and disability or limiting condition. Results Each additional strongly endorsed physical literacy-related attitude item was associated with a 0.248-point higher life satisfaction score in the fully adjusted model (95% CI 0.231 to 0.265; p < 0.001). Physical activity categories had a small overall association with life satisfaction (F(3, 460) = 6.42; p = 0.0003), but adjusted estimates were non-monotonic. Relative to < 30 min/day, the coefficient for daily 60 + min was − 0.111 (95% CI -0.200 to -0.022), whereas the other two contrasts were not statistically significant. The physical activity by attitude-count interaction was not statistically significant (F(3, 460) = 1.88; p = 0.132). Conclusions The physical literacy-related attitude count was positively associated with life satisfaction, whereas adjusted physical activity estimates were non-monotonic. These cross-sectional findings support examining adolescents’ psychological appraisals of participation alongside activity volume. Longitudinal and intervention studies are needed to establish direction and test whether changing these attitudes affects wellbeing.