Relationship Between Physical Activity, Healthy Relation Physical Strength and Nutritional Habit based on FTO Gene Polymorphism of Elementary School Female Students

Health literacy is an important outcome of the discussion of school-related health education and health promotion in the 21st century. Although the improvement of health literacy at an early age is increasingly recognized and few interventions show the development of children´s health literacy, still there is little research in this area. The purpose of the study was to examine the enhancement of health literacy among children in a physical activity-based program at elementary school. In total, 137 students aged 6–12 years participated in the program, which included health knowledge transfer in child-appropriate games and exercises. Participants´ health literacy was assessed using the HLS-Child-Q15-DE at the beginning and the end of the program. The instrument measures the access, understanding, appraisal and application of health-related information on a four-point Likert-type scale. As expected, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test revealed significant increases in self-reported health literacy over time. The results show that the degree of change in health literacy was not associated with gender or age. The results suggest that the physical activity-based program has the potential to improve elementary school children´s health literacy, even though in a single group pilot study.

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Effect of Children’s Weight Status on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior during Physical Education, Recess, and After School

Journal of Clinical Medicine ◽

10.3390/jcm9082651 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (8) ◽

pp. 2651

Author(s):

Zachary C. Pope ◽

Charles Huang ◽

David Stodden ◽

Daniel J. McDonough ◽

Zan Gao

Keyword(s):

Physical Activity ◽

Body Mass Index ◽

Elementary School ◽

Physical Education ◽

Sedentary Behavior ◽

Body Mass ◽

Weight Status ◽

After School ◽

Healthy Weight

Children’s body mass index may affect physical activity (PA) participation. Therefore, this study examined the effect of children’s weight status on underserved elementary school children’s PA and sedentary behavior (SB) throughout the segmented day. Participants were 138 children (X¯age = 8.14 years). Children’s height and weight were measured with subsequent classification of children as healthy weight or overweight/obese. Durations of moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA), light PA (LPA), and SB during physical education (PE), morning recess, lunch recess, after school, and overall were assessed via accelerometry over three days. Independent t-tests evaluated differences in children’s MVPA, LPA, and SB during each daily segment by weight status. Significantly higher MVPA was observed for children of healthy weight status versus children with overweight/obesity during morning recess, t(136) = 2.15, p = 0.03, after school, t(136) = 2.68, p < 0.01, and overall, t(136) = 2.65, p < 0.01. Interestingly, comparisons of children of healthy weight status and children with overweight/obesity’s LPA and SB during the after-school segment revealed a trend wherein children with overweight/obesity participated in slightly greater LPA/less SB than children of healthy weight status. Higher MVPA was observed among children of healthy weight versus children with overweight/obesity during most daily segments. Concerted efforts should focus on increasing MVPA among children with overweight/obesity.

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