Promoting Activity in Children

¶ … School Physical Activity The evidence seems pretty clear that there are many reasons that physical activity is an important component to health in people of all ages and demographic characteristics. However, one of the most important groups that could benefit the most from learning good physical activity (PA) habits would be elementary aged children. This group not only has increasing rates of obesity and related diseases, but the habits that form early in life are more likely to continue throughout the individual's lifetime.

Therefore, if children are taught good habits early in life, then they could benefit from these habits for a lifetime. Furthermore, a child spends a significant portion of their time in elementary school which represents a key opportunity to begin to developing these habits. There is evidence that there is need for greater physical activity in elementary schools.

The prevalence of overweight and obesity among children has stabilized in recent years; however, it remains at an all-time high of 34.2% among children age 6-11 years; healthy dietary habits and physical activity (PA) may help reduce rates of overweight and obesity; however, only about 42% of children ages 6-11 years meet current PA recommendations (Kulik, et al., 2015). Of the children that are relatively inactive, there is a significantly elevated risk that they will more likely to develop serious disease such as heart disease.

As a result, there have been several efforts to promote PA in children and the authors argue that these efforts have only had moderate success. The study identifies an opportunity to better understand the support mechanisms that can work to promote health and physical activity in children. Social support is fairly complex and abstract concept that can include many levels of consideration.

For example, from an ecological perspective, the multiple contexts in which children function are described as their micro-, meso-, exo-, and macrosystems which are models that describe the proximity of the influence to the child. Within the microsystem, there can be many sources of social support that most commonly come from the families (parents, siblings), friends, peers, and school and community staff (Kulik, et al., 2015).

The study uses a sample of elementary aged children to collect data regarding the children's amount of PA in conjunction with many different types and sources of social support. The results indicate that the sources of social support and their influence were largely mixed and the authors made some surprising findings that were not expected such as differences in correlations among SS and PA along the lines of gender, overweight children, and the roles that principles play (Kulik, et al., 2015).

Although understanding general trends and influences on physical activity and being active in general can provide a broad understanding of the types of things that can motivate different children, it is important to keep in mind that each child is different and they may not respond to these trends. The authors hint to this in their statement of limitations and mention that many of the correlations identified.