A National Survey of Popular Physical Activities among U.S. Children and Youth

Abstract

PURPOSE: Understanding what children and youth enjoy to play is beneficial in helping design intervention and other physical activity (PA) related programs to help improve children’s fitness levels. The aim of this study was to determine the popularity of different PA among children and youth aged from 3 to 15 yr. old. METHODS: The national representative data (N = 53,669,505; 51.12% male; 3-15 yr.) from the 2012 NHANES National Youth Fitness Survey were employed for the analysis. Descriptive analysis was applied to examine the popularity of different type of PA and t-tests were used to determine the sex difference and ANOVAs were applied to examine the age difference on total PA participation. RESULTS: Among the 30 types of PA listed, including running, football, basketball, soccer, swimming, dance, and walking, etc., the most popular PA for children and youth in all age groups is running (33.30%), followed by bike riding (27.86%), and backyard games (21.71%). The 3 most popular PA for boys are running (35.18%), basketball (30.31%), and bike riding (29.90%), and for girls are running (31.33%), bike riding (25.73%), and walking (21.55%). About 16.9% of children/youth participated in no activity, but about 18.7% took part in at least one activity and about 64.4% took part in more than one activities; on average, children/youth took part in 2.59 ±2.18 (M±SD) activities and boys (2.81±2.31) participated in more activities than girls (2.36±2.02; t=758.544, p<0.00, effect size = .10). From 3 to11 yr., as the children got older, they participated in more PA, but the PA participation decreased after 12yr. CONCLUSIONS: Running is the most popular PA for the US children and youth, and some gender and age impact on PA participation was found.Table: No title available.