Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Kinesiophobia is a common psychological barrier to physical activity during adolescence and is characterized by fear-related attention to bodily sensations and avoidance of movement. This study examined whether green exercise is associated with lower kinesiophobia among adolescents and whether self-efficacy statistically mediates these associations, drawing on social cognitive theory. METHODS: A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted among 1,099 Chinese students in Grades 5-9 (aged 10-15 years); adolescents. Participants completed validated self-report measures of green exercise (5 items), self-efficacy (10 items), and kinesiophobia (13 items; somatic focus and activity avoidance). Descriptive statistics, multiple regression (controlling for gender, grade, and place of residence), structural equation modeling (SEM), and bias-corrected bootstrap tests (5,000 resamples) were used to evaluate the hypothesized relationships. RESULTS: In multiple regression analyses, green exercise (β = -0.217; β = -0.289) and self-efficacy (β = -0.279; β = -0.266) were significant negative predictors of somatic focus and activity avoidance, respectively (all p < 0.001), with modest explained variance (R (2) = 0.194 and 0.232). In SEM, green exercise was positively associated with self-efficacy (β = 0.351, p < 0.001) and showed significant direct associations with somatic focus (β = -0.251, p < 0.001) and activity avoidance (β = -0.315, p < 0.001). Self-efficacy was negatively associated with somatic focus (β = -0.308, p < 0.001) and activity avoidance (β = -0.299, p < 0.001). Bootstrap analyses supported partial indirect effects via self-efficacy for somatic focus (β = -0.108; 30.08% of total effect) and activity avoidance (β = -0.105; 25.00% of total effect). CONCLUSION: Findings indicate that greater participation in green exercise is associated with lower kinesiophobia in adolescents, partly through higher self-efficacy. The pattern is consistent with a social-cognitive mechanism linking outdoor physical activity to fear-related responses to movement, while causal inferences require longitudinal or experimental research.