Open AccessDifferences in the Level of Physical Activity Between Girls and Boys of Younger School Age
Author(s) -
Ivaikolić
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
život i škola
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1849-0972
pISSN - 0044-4855
DOI - 10.32903/zs.67.2.3
Subject(s) - physical activity , psychology , leisure time , test (biology) , developmental psychology , significant difference , physical activity level , mann–whitney u test , demography , medicine , physical therapy , paleontology , sociology , biology
This paper aims todetermine the physical activity levels of younger school-age pupils concerninggender. The study involved 190 third-grade pupils (98 male and 92 female) fromelementary schools in Čakovec. Physical activity was examined with the Felsphysical activity questionnaire for children (Treuth et al., 2005), used toassess the physical activity level of children aged 7 to 19. Basic descriptiveparameters were calculated, and the Mann-Whitney U-test was applied to examinedifferences in the TA level with respect to gender. The results showed that66.3% of boys and only 34% of girls fall within the recommended daily physicalactivity. Furthermore, significant differences were obtained in the field of sports(p = 0.00), leisure time (p = 0.00), and total physical activity (p = 0.00).Boys are significantly more active in sports, leisure time, and total physicalactivity, while no significant difference between the genders was obtained inthe field of physical activity in housework. The research showed that the totallevel of physical activity in this sample is very low in girls because only athird meet the recommended daily physical activities. Therefore, promoting andteaching physical activity is necessary at an early school age since enteringpuberty significantly reduces physical activity in both genders.