Abstract
Improving adolescents’ levels of sport and physical activity (PA) is an official public health issue. French national government plans were launched in 2001, 2006, and 2011 to improve the participation levels of citizens. These plans should be monitored. To date, information on temporal trends in sports has come from the national population. However, no data are available to measure temporal trends in different territories across the country. Our study aimed to measure these trends among a representative sample of adolescent students of the third biggest French region (Bouches-du-Rhône), but also one of the poorest, between 2001 and 2015. Three surveys were conducted in 2001, 2008, and 2015 in high schools (n = 3218). Logistic regressions adjusted for age were used to determine the impact of socioeconomic status (SES) on sports participation and to measure the changes in sport participation rates. Participation declined among all subgroups of adolescents: from 79.0% to 65.8%. The greatest decrease was observed for boys with a high SES, whilst the lowest was for the high-SES girls. We observed that SES inequalities in access to sport increased among the girls, whilst they reduced among the boys. National government plans seem to have had limited success in this territory. Next to national studies, there is a need to develop territory specific studies which could show important disparities across the national territory.
Highlights
Many studies show the positive effect of physical activity (PA) on adolescents’ health [1,2] and weight status [3,4]
There were increasing inequalities linked to socioeconomic status (SES) in access to sport among the girls
Sports participation rates of adolescent students living in this area were lower in 2015 compared to 2001, regardless of sex and SES
Summary
Many studies show the positive effect of physical activity (PA) on adolescents’ health [1,2] and weight status [3,4]. Sports help to attain daily recommended levels of PA [5] and have an impact on psychological and social health [6]. Promoting sports participation among citizens and supporting local sports organizations are recommended by the World Health Organization [7]. PA and sports participation during adolescence are predictors of PA and sport participation in adulthood [8,9,10], where a physically active lifestyle helps to prevent cancer, type II diabetes, osteoporosis [11], and cardiovascular diseases [12,13]. Adherence to sports by the largest possible number of adolescents constitutes, in the short and long term, a major public health issue
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