PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AS A PART OF CHILDREN’S QUALITY OF LIFE MODEL

Research on children’s quality of life is largely attributed to adults’ needs or perceptions of children’s quality of life. Child well-being was initially assessed in terms of objective reality: mortality rates, malnutrition, immunisation, disease, with little reliability in measuring their subjective well-being. Subjective quality of life refers to perceptions, aspirations, assessment of one’s own living conditions. A holistic model of children’s quality of life involves measuring the economic, social, physical, psychological and cognitive dimensions using instruments that reveal the subjective view of their quality of life. The aim of this paper is to examine the multidimensional nature of children’s quality of life and to identify the place of physical activity in the quality of life (QoL) model. Physical activity is associated with higher quality of life. Research on children’s quality of life through interventions that use physical activity primarily reflects an intervention-based model for disease prevention or mitigation. A QoL model using physical activity interventions may also have some limitations, unless it assumes the measurement of other domains that may influence it. Children’s quality of life is a relatively new topic in the literature. Although many models of children’s quality of life are proposed, a unified model has not been agreed upon by experts. Measuring it requires the use of instruments for each dimension of which it is composed. Physical activity as a method of intervention on children’s quality of life is associated with children’s physical as well as psychological well-being.