A LONG-TERM FOLLOW-UP OF PARTICIPANTS IN THE TROIS-RIVI??RES STUDY OF GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT.

Abstract

515 The purpose of this project was to undertake a long-term follow-up of participants in the Trois-Rivières Growth and Development study. In the 1970s, this study had compared the effects on the growth and development of primary school students of a daily quality physical education program and the standard provincial program (one session a week). Our current hypothesis was that the experimental program may have influenced the lifestyle and attitudes of participants as adults. We thus compared 150 experimental subjects, men (M) and women (W), who had received five one hour sessions of specialist-taught physical education per week throughout their six years of primary school, and 103 members of the original control group some twenty years after the program had ended. Subjects completed a questionnaire exploring their current patterns of physical activity (PA), their attitudes and beliefs about PA and perceived barriers to PA. Principal results indicate (1) more experimental than control W now exercise 3 times or more times per week (42.1% vs. 25.9%, P<0.01),(2) experimental subjects (M+W, and W considered separately) perceive that their health is very good to excellent more commonly than the corresponding control groups (M+W: 65.3% vs. 50.9%; W: 69.7% vs. 50%, both P<0.05), (3) control subjects in general, feel less psychological dependency on exercise than the experimental subjects (22.7% vs. 12.2% “quite to very unlikely”, P<0.05). Daily primary school physical education has thus had significant long-term positive effects on lifestyle and health, even without specific health education objectives. Greater benefit might be anticipated from a program with a deliberate health education component.