International Journal of Collaborative Research on Internal Medicine & Public Health

Determining factors of physical activity opportunities for rural area adolescents

Background: Adolescence is a critical stage for the physical inactivity and the obesity, and the knowledge of factors that influence the opportunities for physical activity and nutritional status is very important, especially for the health of rural populations.

Objective: To analyse associations between determining the factors of the physical activity opportunities and nutritional status and demographical characteristics of adolescents from rural areas of the Santa Catarina state, in southern Brazil.

Methods: Cross-sectional study with 991 randomly selected subjects, using the Physical Activity Questionnaire – Child.

Results: Girls tend to be more sedentary whereas boys tend to be more active and moderately active, including the performance of all school and extracurricular physical activities. Physical activities in physical education classes show the greatest proportion of adolescents classified as more active. Significant correlations were identified between the physical activity opportunities for males when the head of household has studied beyond the ninth grade.

Conclusion: In the rural areas of Santa Catarina school and extracurricular physical activities are determined by the sex and by the educational level of the head of household. Physical activities in physical education show the greatest proportion of active adolescents, whereas physical activities done in the evenings show the lowest proportion of active adolescents.

Author(s): Rudney da Silva , Carla Regiane Vargas , Danielle Biazzi Leal , Gisele Graziele Bento , Paulo José Barbos Gutierres Filho

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