Finding the active factor
by Emma Masters
With the issue of childhood obesity increasingly hitting the headlines, new UniSA research is providing crucial information about children's activity levels and giving parents and teachers practical hints about how to encourage children to find their 'active factor'.
The study is also the first of its kind to classify Australian kids by the different types of activity they take part in, charting three distinct groups for boys and four for girls, such as screenies who spend large amounts of time in front of a television or computer screen, or sporties who spend most of their time playing sport.
According to chief investigator Dr Tim Olds from UniSA's School of Health Sciences, children are increasingly choosing sedentary activities over more physical ones. And it is this lack of physical work that is a major contributing factor to Australia's growing obesity problem, rather than the fallacy that children are eating more, when they are actually eating less.
Different strokes
BOYS
Sporties are an active group who spend a large amount of time playing sport, little time in play and an average amount of time in front of a screen.
Screenies spend a lot of time watching television and/or playing video games and play little sport.
Potterers/Autonomes spend a lot of time in activities that they can create and participate in by themselves without the need for external organisation or stimulation.
GIRLS
Girls can also be sporties and screenies, but there are also two other groupings:
Players spend most of their time playing and very little time in front of a television or computer screen. These girls don't spend a lot of time in organised sport.
Socialisers are girls who spend a lot of time in inactive socialising, such as sitting and talking to friends, and little time in sport or play.
“Over half of all children aged 5-14 years are spending more time watching television than in the classroom,“ says Dr Olds. “Boys are more active than girls – spending on average 70 minutes a day playing sport and 55 minutes a day playing or moving around. In comparison girls spend on average 35 minutes a day playing sport and 44 minutes playing and moving around.“
The study involved more than 4000 South Australian children aged between 10 to 15 years completing a special multimedia activity diary, Multimedia Activity Recall for Children and Adolescents (MARCA). Developed by UniSA's Dr Olds and PhD student Kate Ridley in 2002, MARCA allows kids to recall their daily activity in five minute blocks.
Commissioned by the Australian Sports Commission and funded by Coca Cola, the findings and recommendations are detailed in an Active Factor booklet and website, outlining activities parents can encourage their kids to do based on their 'active' personality type.
For example, parents of screenies can purchase computer games that encourage movement, such as dance mats, or those with socialiser kids can organise a treasure hunt or set up a walking group where friends can walk and talk.
The research by Dr Olds and his associates Dr Kobie Boshoff, Jim Dollman and Sue Hartshorne has other applications, such as using the information to develop structured 'out of school' programs for the critical window period for activity between the end of school and dinner time.
For a copy of the booklet or the full report, visit the active factor website or contact Emma Masters on (08) 8302 0096.