A study on the relationship between college students’ physical exercise and feelings of inferiority: The mediating effect of social support

Huan Lei; Bo Peng; Minghuan Tang; Weisong Chen; Hongshen Wang; Ting Yu

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0321685

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionDecember 9, 2024
9 Dec 2024 Author Response https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321685.r001
23 Jan 2025 Decision Letter - Maria Nogueira, Editor PONE-D-24-56284A study on the relationship between college students' physical exercise and feelings of inferiority: the mediating effect of social supportPLOS ONE Dear Dr. wang, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 09 2025 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org . When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. 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However, with regard to the presentation of results (tables, table titles, diagrams), the information can be presented in a more attractive way, which facilitates its analysis. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? 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Revision 1
5 Mar 2025 Author Response Response to Reviewers We sincerely thank the editor and reviewers for their detailed and constructive comments on our manuscript. Your insightful feedback has been invaluable in helping us improve the quality, rigor, and clarity of our manuscript. We have carefully reviewed all the comments and have made substantial revisions to address the concerns raised. Below, we provide a point-by-point response to each of the reviewers' comments, detailing the revisions we have made. Once again, we deeply appreciate your time, expertise, and constructive suggestions, all of which have significantly strengthened our study. We hope that the revised manuscript meets your expectations. Editor Comment 1:File naming. Reviewer’s Comment:Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf Response:We would like to sincerely thank the reviewer for pointing out the importance of adhering to PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. We have carefully reviewed the provided style templates and have made the necessary adjustments to ensure that our manuscript fully complies with PLOS ONE's formatting guidelines. We appreciate your valuable feedback, which has helped us improve the quality and presentation of our submission. Revisions Made: We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the reviewer for pointing out the importance of adhering to PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. In response, we have thoroughly reviewed the provided style templates and made the necessary adjustments to ensure that our manuscript fully complies with PLOS ONE's formatting guidelines. We have updated the manuscript to reflect these changes, including the correct file naming conventions. Thank you for your valuable feedback, which has helped us improve the presentation of our work. Specific Modifications: 1:The title and main body fonts were checked to ensure they comply with PLOS ONE's style requirements. 2:The title and main body fonts were then modified to match the font and size specified by PLOS ONE. Comment 2:Details of consent obtained Reviewer’s Comment:In the ethics statement in the Methods, you have specified that verbal consent was obtained. Please provide additional details regarding how this consent was documented and witnessed, and state whether this was approved by the IRB. Response:We would like to sincerely thank the reviewer for their valuable feedback regarding the ethics statement. In response to the comment, we have revised the section to provide additional details on how verbal consent was obtained, documented, and witnessed. We also clarified that the study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Chengdu Sport University (Approval Number: CTYLL2024010). These revisions ensure a more comprehensive description of the consent process, as requested. We appreciate your careful review and believe these modifications strengthen the manuscript. Revisions Made: Confidentiality and informed consent:Confidentiality and Informed Consent: This study strictly adhered to the Declaration of Helsinki and relevant national and institutional ethical guidelines. Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of Chengdu Sport University (Approval Number: CTYLL2024010). All participants were adults and provided verbal informed consent before participating in the study, confirming their understanding of the study's content and voluntary involvement. During the consent process, researchers provided each participant with a detailed explanation of the study's purpose, procedures, and their rights, ensuring that participants had ample time to ask questions. During data processing, all responses were fully anonymized, ensuring the privacy and confidentiality of participants' data were thoroughly protected. Specific Modifications: 1:Detailed the process of obtaining verbal consent. We further clarified the process of obtaining verbal consent in the ethics statement, explaining that verbal consent was obtained after the researcher provided a detailed explanation of the study’s purpose, procedures, and the participants' rights. 2:Added details on how verbal consent was documented and witnessed. We described how verbal consent was documented and emphasized that it was obtained voluntarily by the participants after understanding the study’s content. We also clarified that the verbal consent was witnessed by the researchers. 3:Clarified IRB approval. We clearly stated that the study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Chengdu Sport University (Approval Number: CTYLL2024010) to ensure compliance with academic and ethical standards. Comment 3:Data sharing Reviewer’s Comment:We note that you have indicated that there are restrictions to data sharing for this study. For studies involving human research participant data or other sensitive data, we encourage authors to share de-identified or anonymized data. However, when data cannot be publicly shared for ethical reasons, we allow authors to make their data sets available upon request. For information on unacceptable data access restrictions, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. Before we proceed with your manuscript, please address the following prompts: a)If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially identifying or sensitive patient information, data are owned by a third-party organization, etc.) and who has imposed them (e.g., a Research Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board, etc.). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. b)b) If there are no restrictions, please upload the minimal anonymized data set necessary to replicate your study findings to a stable, public repository and provide us with the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers. Please see http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c181.long for guidelines on how to de-identify and prepare clinical data for publication. For a list of recommended repositories, please see https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/recommended-repositories. You also have the option of uploading the data as Supporting Information files, but we would recommend depositing data directly to a data repository if possible. Please update your Data Availability statement in the submission form accordingly. Response:We sincerely thank the reviewer for their valuable feedback regarding data sharing. In response to the reviewer's comment, we have made the necessary revisions in the manuscript. Additionally, we have uploaded the data as Supporting Information to comply with the journal's requirements. We appreciate the reviewer's suggestion, which has helped improve the transparency and clarity of the manuscript regarding data usage. Revisions Made: 12 Supporting information S1 Empirical data and original scale. (zip) Specific Modifications: We have made modifications to the data usage section of the manuscript. We have updated the data section to "12 Supporting information: S1 Empirical data and original scale. (zip)" to ensure the transparency of data sharing and compliance with the journal's requirements. Comment 4:Raw data Reviewer’s Comment:We note that your Data Availability Statement is currently as follows: “The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author/s.” Please confirm at this time whether or not your submission contains all raw data required to replicate the results of your study. Authors must share the “minimal data set” for their submission. PLOS defines the minimal data set to consist of the data required to replicate all study findings reported in the article, as well as related metadata and methods (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-minimal-data-set-definition). For example, authors should submit the following data: The values behind the means, standard deviations and other measures reported; The values used to build graphs; The points extracted from images for analysis. Authors do not need to submit their entire data set if only a portion of the data was used in the reported study. If your submission does not contain these data, please either upload them as Supporting Information files or deposit them to a stable, public repository and provide us with the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers. For a list of recommended repositories, please see https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/recommended-repositories. If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially sensitive information, data are owned by a third-party organization, etc.) and who has imposed them (e.g., an ethics committee). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. If data are owned by a third party, please indicate how others may request data access. Response:We sincerely thank the reviewer for their valuable feedback on the Data Availability Statement. In response to the reviewer's comment, we have reviewed and updated the data usage to ensure compliance with the requirements for sharing the minimal data set. We confirm that the submitted materials include all the raw data required to replicate the study's results, including the values behind the reported means, standard deviations, and other measures, as well as the data used to build the graphs and analyze images. To comply with PLOS ONE’s guidelines, we have uploaded the data as Supporting Information and made it available for review. We appreciate the reviewer’s suggestions, which have helped us improve the transparency and compliance of our submission. Revisions Made: 12 Supporting information S1 Empirical data and original scale. (zip) Specific Modifications: We have made modifications to the data usage section of the manuscript. We have updated the data section to "12 Supporting information: S1 Empirical data and original scale. (zip)" to ensure the transparency of data sharing and compliance with the journal's requirements. Comment 5: Corresponding author ORCID iD. Reviewer’s Comment: PLOS requires an ORCID iD for the corresponding author in Editorial Manager on papers submitted after December 6th, 2016. Please ensure that you have an ORCID iD and that it is validated in Editorial Manager. To do this, go to ‘Update my Information’ (in the upper left-hand corner of the main menu), and click on the Fetch/Validate link next to the ORCID field. This will take you to the ORCID site and allow you to create a new iD or authenticate a pre-existing iD in Editorial Manager. Response: We would like to sincerely thank the reviewer for pointing out the requirement for an ORCID iD for the corresponding author. In response to this comment, we have ensured that the corresponding author's ORCID iD has been created and validated in Editorial Manager. We followed the provided instructions and updated the ORCID iD in the system. We appreciate the reviewer’s helpful suggestion, which has allowed us to meet the journal's requirements for ORCID iD validation. Revisions Made: The ORCID iD of the corresponding author is 0009-0007-8947-0234. Specific Modifications: 1:Created and validated the corresponding author's ORCID iD. In response to the reviewer's comment, we ensured that the corresponding author's ORCID iD was created and validated in the Editorial Manager system. 2:Updated the ORCID iD following the provided instructions. We followed the steps provided by the reviewer, went to the "Update my Information" page, clicked the "Fetch/Validate" link next to the ORCID field, and accessed the ORCID website, where we successfully created a new ORCID iD and validated it. 3:Ensured the ORCID iD complies with journal requirements. We have ensured that the ORCID iD complies with PLOS ONE's requirements and completed all necessary updates in the submission system. Comment 6: Check references. Reviewer’s Comment: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Response: We would like to sincerely thank the reviewer for their valuable feedback regarding the reference list. In response to this comment, we have carefully reviewed the entire reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. We have confirmed that there are no retracted papers cited in the manuscript. If there were any, we would have included the rationale for citing them or replaced them with relevant current references as suggested. No changes to the reference list were necessary. We appreciate the reviewer's suggestion, which has helped ensure the accuracy and integrity of our reference list. Comment 7: Improvement of tables, table titles, and figures. Reviewer’s Comment: This work is an important contribution to improving students’ mental health. However, with regard to the presentation of results (tables, table titles, diagrams), the information can be presented in a more attractive way, which facilitates its analysis. Response: We would like to sincerely thank the reviewer for their positive feedback on the contribution of our work to improving students' mental health. In response to the comment regarding the presentation of results, we have made improvements to the tables, table titles, and diagrams. We have reformatted and enhanced the presentation to make the information clearer and more visually appealing, which we believe will facilitate better analysis and comprehension of the results. We appreciate the reviewer’s suggestion, which has greatly helped in improving the overall presentation of our manuscript. Revisions Made: Table 4. Descriptive Statistics, Reliability, and CFA Fit Indices for Key Variables. Figure1. heoretical Model of the Relationship Between Physical Exercise and Feelings of Inferiority in College Students: The Mediating Role of Social Support. Figure 2. Correlation Matrix of Key Variables: Physical Exercise (PEX), Social Support (SSU), and Feelings of Inferiority (FOI). p < 0.05. Figure 3. Structural equation model depicting the relationships between physical exercise, social support, and feelings of inferiority. Specific Modifications: 1:Improved the design of tables and figures. We formatted and enhanced all tables and figures to make them clearer and more visually appealing, facilitating easier understanding and analysis of the results. 2:Refined the table titles. In response to the reviewer's suggestion, we renamed several table titles to make them more accurate, concise, and better reflective of the content. 3:Adjusted the layout of figures. We reorganized the layout of the figures to make the data more intuitive, easier to compare, and more effective in displaying the results. We sincerely appreciate your insightful comments, which have greatly enhanced the clarity, accuracy, and overall presentation of the manuscript. Thank you for your valuable feedback. Reviewer 1 Comment 1:Supportive comments. Reviewer’s Comment:This paper proposes an investigation into the physical exercise habits of university students and their feelings of inferiority, focusing on the mediating role of social support. The topic under study is very pertinent and links physical activity and s Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321685.r003
10 Mar 2025 Decision Letter - Maria Nogueira, Editor <p>A study on the relationship between college students' physical exercise and feelings of inferiority: the mediating effect of social support PONE-D-24-56284R1 Dear Dr. hongshen wang We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Maria José Nogueira, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Dear authors The authors introduced the suggested improvements to the manuscript, which can now be accepted for publication. Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321685.r004
Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Maria Nogueira, Editor PONE-D-24-56284R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. wang, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset You will receive further instructions from the production team, including instructions on how to review your proof when it is ready. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few days to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Professor Maria José Nogueira Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321685.r005

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