Frequency Of Sports Activities Research Articles

Climate Anxiety and Mental Health in Germany

Our aim was to investigate the association between climate anxiety and mental health in a general adult population. Cross-sectional data of the general adult population were used (n = 3091 individuals aged 18 to 74 years; March 2022). The Climate Anxiety Scale was used to assess climate anxiety. Probable depression was quantified using the PHQ-9, and the GAD-7 was used to assess probable anxiety. Adjusted for sex, age, marital status, having children in the household, highest level of school education, employment situation, smoking behavior, alcohol intake, frequency of sports activities, chronic illnesses and self-rated health and coronavirus anxiety, multiple logistic regressions showed that a higher climate anxiety was associated with a higher likelihood of probable depression (OR: 1.37, 95% CI: 1.25–1.50). Moreover, regressions showed that a higher climate anxiety was associated with a higher likelihood of probable anxiety (OR: 1.27, 95% CI: 1.15–1.40). In conclusion, our study demonstrated an association between climate anxiety and mental health in Germany. Further research (e.g., based on longitudinal data) is required to confirm our study’s findings.

Social variables for replication of studies using mean scores of social support, self-care, and fibromyalgia knowledge: a cross-sectional study.

To investigate biopsychosocial variables that contribute to explaining social support, self-care, and fibromyalgia knowledge in patients with fibromyalgia. A cross-sectional study. We built ten models of predictive variables (schooling, ethnicity, associated diseases, body regions affected by pain, employment status, monthly income, marital status, health level, medication, sports activities, interpersonal relationships, nutrition level, widespread pain, symptom severity, cohabitation, dependent people, number of children, social support, self-care, and fibromyalgia knowledge) and individually tested their explanatory performance to predict mean scores on the Fibromyalgia Knowledge Questionnaire (FKQ), Medical Outcomes Study's Social Support Scale (MOS-SSS), and Appraisal of Self-Care Agency Scale-Revised (ASAS-R). We used analysis of variance to verify the association among all variables of mathematically adjusted models (F-value ≥ 2.20) and we reported only models corrected with p < 0.05 and R2 > 0.20. One hundred and ninety people with fibromyalgia (aged 42.3 ± 9.7years) participated in the study. Our results show that the variables schooling, ethnicity, body regions affected by pain, frequency of sports activities, dependent people, number of children, widespread pain, social support, and self-care determine 27% of the mean FKQ scores. Marital status, self-care, and fibromyalgia knowledge determine 22% of mean MOS-SSS scores. Schooling, ethnicity, employment status, frequency of sports activities, nutrition level, cohabitation, number of children, social support, and fibromyalgia knowledge determine 30% of the mean ASAS-R scores. Studies using mean scores of social support, self-care, and fibromyalgia knowledge should collect and analyze the social variables described in the present study.

SPIRITUALITY AND IRRATIONAL BELIEFS OF MOVEMENT ACTIVITIES IN SLOVAKS AND CZECHS

Aim. The present study is focused on exploring of the relationship between spirituality and irrational beliefs particularly in relation to movement activities in Slovakia and Czechia, i.e., helplessness, idealisation, perfectionism, external vulnerability, and negative expectation. Concept. Our research has been focused on the investigation, comparison, and correlation between the level of spirituality and irrational beliefs depending on the frequency of sport activities. Method. The research sample (N = 469) consisted of Slovak and Czech health population aged 18-70 (M = 41.97, SD = 13.14), of which 42.2% were men (N = 198) and 57.8% were women (N = 271). The level of spirituality was identified by means of the Expressions of Spiritual Inventory-Revised – ESI-R (MacDonald, 2000). The irrational beliefs were measured using the Scale of Irrational Beliefs (Kondáš &amp; Kordáčová, 2000). Results. Research results confirmed the differences between the variables of spirituality and irrational beliefs based on the frequency of sports activities. Also, we confirmed the hypothesis of negative correlation between spirituality and irrational beliefs. Conclusion. In our study, we focused on the correlations between irrational beliefs and spirituality in group of Slovak and Czech population. Based on our results we can draw several conclusions. Research results confirmed the differences between the variables of spirituality and irrational beliefs based on frequency of sports activities.

“How learning doesn't work” Children evaluate their cell phone use – An empirical pilot study

In our increasingly digitally organized society, we enjoy great benefits from easier working conditions and the acceleration of developmental processes. Children are expected to be prepared for this and to receive a tablet or cell phone as early as possible. This, however, poses a huge risk because a child’s brain must initially organize itself in an analog fashion. This means that the spatial-modular building of neural networks and the rhythmic timing of brain activities mature very slowly through upbringing and school education to support memory formation and thinking. Once this foundation has been established, a digital workplace will be easily accessible to any young adult. To investigate in more detail the impacts of private cell phone use on the learning abilities of children, we designed a cognitive test that, among other things, measures spatiotemporal abilities and memory performance. A total of 54 third-grade students (aged 8 and 9) were subjected to the testing at an elementary school in the Rhein-Neckar-Kreis/Baden Württemberg region from December 2019 to March 2020. The intensity of private cell phone use was measured with a nonverbal method, the evidence-based water glass method. Prior to testing, we evaluated the children’s ability to evaluate themselves with this nonverbal method and designed a lie item, which allowed us to filter out those children who were unable to evaluate themselves. Due to the high data quality, variance analysis was used to analyze the quantified data statistically. The results showed that prefrontal cortex skills such as spatial perception, concentration, and anticipation were significantly poorer in third-graders with heavy cell phone use compared to those with little or no cell phone use. The heavier the cell phone use, the less well developed was their cognitive memory performance if it included a time delay. Furthermore, we observed a significant impact of the intensity of cell phone use on the motivation to go to school. The frequency of sports activities, playing outdoors, friendships, and homework was not significantly affected by cell phone use. The reason for this could be that modern schoolchildren only have rather limited control over the timing of these activities. Overall, the data suggest that other cognitive and emotional-motivational abilities such as spelling and handwriting are also adversely affected by heavy cell phone use. This could be verified by an investigation with a larger sample size. The findings of this pilot study should be a warning: with the digital transformation, our society could cause severe and also irreversible cognitive damage to the young generation. The discussion shows that brain research findings from the past half century provide comprehensive evidence for this

Psychosocial impact of sport activity in neuromuscular disorders.

Previous studies demonstrated the benefits of motor exercise and physical activity in neuromuscular disorders. However, very few papers assessed the effects of sport practise. The aim of this multicentre study was to assess the impact of sport activity on self-esteem and emotional regulation in a cohort of athletes with neuromuscular disorders. The 38 patients with Duchenne, Becker or other types of muscular dystrophy or spinal muscular atrophy practising sport (aged 13-49years) and 39 age-, gender-, disability- and disease-matched patients not practising sport were enrolled. Testing procedures to assess self-esteem, anxiety and depression disorder, personality trait and quality of life (QoL) were used. Patients practising sport had a significantly higher self-esteem, lower level of depression, greater social own identity and adherence and QoL. Frequency of sport activity may represent a complementary therapy in neuromuscular disorders to improve mental and social well-being.

Three-dimensional quantitative analysis of healthy foot shape: a proof of concept study

BackgroundFoot morphology has received increasing attention from both biomechanics researches and footwear manufacturers. Usually, the morphology of the foot is quantified by 2D footprints. However, footprint quantification ignores the foot’s vertical dimension and hence, does not allow accurate quantification of complex 3D foot shape.MethodsThe shape variation of healthy 3D feet in a population of 31 adult women and 31 adult men who live in Belgium was studied using geometric morphometric methods. The effect of different factors such as sex, age, shoe size, frequency of sport activity, Body Mass Index (BMI), foot asymmetry, and foot loading on foot shape was investigated. Correlation between these factors and foot shape was examined using multivariate linear regression.ResultsThe complex nature of a foot’s 3D shape leads to high variability in healthy populations. After normalizing for scale, the major axes of variation in foot morphology are (in order of decreasing variance): arch height, combined ball width and inter-toe distance, global foot width, hallux bone orientation (valgus-varus), foot type (e.g. Egyptian, Greek), and midfoot width. These first six modes of variation capture 92.59% of the total shape variation. Higher BMI results in increased ankle width, Achilles tendon width, heel width and a thicker forefoot along the dorsoplantar axis. Age was found to be associated with heel width, Achilles tendon width, toe height and hallux orientation. A bigger shoe size was found to be associated with a narrow Achilles tendon, a hallux varus, a narrow heel, heel expansion along the posterior direction, and a lower arch compared to smaller shoe size. Sex was found to be associated with differences in ankle width, Achilles tendon width, and heel width. Frequency of sport activity was associated with Achilles tendon width and toe height.ConclusionA detailed analysis of the 3D foot shape, allowed by geometric morphometrics, provides insights in foot variations in three dimensions that can not be obtained from 2D footprints. These insights could be applied in various scientific disciplines, including orthotics and shoe design.

The longitudinal association between informal caregiving and body mass index in the second half of life: findings of the German Ageing Survey

ObjectiveWe aimed to investigate the relation between informal caregiving and body mass index (BMI) longitudinally. Study designThe data were drawn from wave 2 (2002) to wave 5 (2014) of the German Ageing Survey. This is a representative sample of the community-dwelling population aged 40 years and above in Germany. MethodsSelf-rated BMI was used. Individuals were asked whether they provide informal care on a regular basis. Adjusting for employment status, age, marital status, morbidity and depressive symptoms, fixed effects regressions were used. ResultsThe fixed effects regressions showed that the onset of informal caregiving was not associated with changes in BMI in the total sample and in women, whereas the onset of informal caregiving was associated with increasing BMI in men (β = 0.15, P < 0.05). In addition, an increase in BMI was positively associated with ageing, an increase in morbidity and a decrease in frequency of sports activities in the total sample and in both sexes. ConclusionsOur findings stress the longitudinal relation between informal caregiving and BMI in men. Consequently, it might be helpful to generate weight management strategies specifically designed for male informal caregivers.

Sporting Activities and Quality of Life in Children With Hemophilia: An Observational Study.

Sports activities are part of multidisciplinary treatments in people with hemophilia. The objective of this study was to assess the incidence of sports activities in the quality of life as perceived by children with hemophilia. A total of 53 children with hemophilia aged 7 to 13 years and 51 children without hemophilia were evaluated. The perception of quality of life, clinical variables, and the frequency of sports activities were registered. The joint condition of patients with hemophilia was measured with the Spanish version of the Haemophilia Joint Health Score. There were no significant differences in the perception of quality of life between children with hemophilia and children without hemophilia. Sports activities in people with hemophilia promoted a greater health satisfaction. Sports activity in children with hemophilia is associated with an improved quality of life and joint health. It is also associated with improved psychosocial wellness.

How the number of years of sports experience and the frequency of sports activities can influence the quality of life of people with challenges.

The present study focused on the users of sports centres for people with challenges to identify the relationship between sports activities and quality of life (QOL) of the users. A centre established in H Prefecture in 1996 (Centre H) and another in T Prefecture in 2006 (Centre T) were studied to find out how differences in the number of years of sports experience and frequency of sports activities could affect QOL scores of the 36-Item Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36). The examination of the relationship between the number of years of sports experience and the total QOL scores of the respondents at both centres revealed significantly better QOL scores on the bodily pain (BP) and role emotional (RE) scales among the respondents with three or more years of sports experience, compared to those with less than three years of sports experience. On the whole, the higher the number of years of sports experience and the greater the frequency of sports activities, the better the QOL scores were. These results suggest that sports activities contribute greatly to the improvement of the everyday QOL of challenged individuals and long years of frequent sports activities have a beneficial impact on the QOL of physically-challenged individuals.

Iron Load and Liver Enzymes in 10‐ and 13‐year‐olds

Iron plays a pivotal role in adult steatosis, but its role in child and adolescent steatosis is unclear. We investigated the effect of dietary iron, serum iron, and ferritin on serum transaminases and γ-glutamyltransferase in 10- and 13-year-olds. The study included 4894 fifth and eighth graders enrolled between 2006 and 2009 in all schools in Shunan City, Japan. Multiple regression analyses were performed with adjustments for grade, sex, z score of the body mass index, serum lipids, plasma glucose, frequency of sports activities, having a single parent, number of siblings, tobacco smoking behavior, passive smoking at home, resident areas, and schools, using linear mixed models. In addition, we analyzed ferritin and insulin resistance in randomly selected subset of participants. Dietary iron intake was positively associated with serum alanine aminotransferase levels (standardized coefficient β = 2.35, P = 0.019). Serum iron concentrations were associated with transaminase and γ-glutamyltransferase levels (β = 3.22, and 4.05, respectively, P < 0.01). In the subset of 421 subjects with further serum analysis, serum ferritin levels were significantly associated with serum enzyme levels (β = 2.43-3.35; P < 0.05) and showed significant odds ratio for the elevated alanine aminotransferase levels (1.05 for 1 SD with 95% confidence intervals 1.02-1.08). However, iron load did not show a positive association with insulin resistance. Although an effect size for iron is small in regression analyses, iron is implicated in increased transaminase levels in prepubertal and pubertal children.

Sport activity in adolescence: associations with health perceptions and experimental behaviours.

Despite the relevance of this research topic from a public health perspective, there is currently a lack of objective data on European adolescents' sport activity, notably the associations between their sport habits and their health attitudes and behaviours, which may have important consequences both in terms of somatic (cardiovascular) health and mental health. The objective of the present study was to determine the direction and strength of the associations between the frequency of sport and health variables; in particular, perceptions of health, self image, substance use and experimental behaviours. Data were collected as part of the 1993 Swiss Multicentric Adolescent Survey on Health. In this survey, anonymous self-administered questionnaires were distributed to a national representative sample of 10,000 in-school adolescents (15-20 years of age). Univariate analyses explored the relationships between the level of sport activity and health variables; then logistic regression analyses examined the strength of these relationships. According to the results, half of the sample do sports more than twice a week, boys more often as part of a sports club. Differences between non-athletic and athletic adolescents describe the latter as having less somatic complaints, more confidence in their future health, a better body image, a lesser tendency to attempt suicide, a higher frequency of use of the car seat belt, and a lower use of tobacco, wine and marijuana. Links between the frequency of sport activity and the locus of control related to health, general satisfaction with life or sexual behaviours are less strong. It must be noticed that the cross-sectional data collection precludes the establishment of a causal relationship between exercise and health behaviours. However, the existing links underline the coexistence of positive health characteristics and sport activity, suggesting that an incitement to get involved in physical activity may be a necessary component of a comprehensive prevention approach among adolescents.

L'activité sportive des jeunes en Suisse: pratiques, motivatins et liens avec la santé

Background. - Despite the relevance of this research topic from a public health perspective, there is currently a lack of objective data on the frequency and context of European adolescents' sport activity, their motivations to engage in sports, as well as the links between their sport habits and their health attitudes and behaviors. Objectives. - 1) to describe the sport habits of adolescents in Switzerland and their motivations to get involved in a physical activity, 2) to define the sociodemographic profile of adolescents defined as athletic, 3) to determine the nature of the associations between the frequency of sport activity and health variables. Method. - In the 1993 Swiss Multicentric Adolescent Survey on Health, anonymous self-administered questionnaires were distributed to a national representative sample of 10,000 in-school adolescents (15 to 20 years old). The answers were investigated by means of univariate analyses. Results. - Half of the sample do sports more than twice a week, boys more often as part of a sports club. Motivations depend on the gender, girls doing sports for self image and health motivations and boys for competition and relational reasons. Almost all the sociodemographic characteristics show statistically significant differences between «non athleticå, «fairly athleticå and «athleticå adolescents, which suggests the influence of the sociocultural background on the perception of sport activity. These three groups also differ as regards their health behaviors, attitudes and perceptions: the most athletic adolescents generally give more positive answers in terms of prevention and perceived health. These findings have implications for health promotion, notably as regards the creation of the material conditions more likely to favor adolescents' involvement in physical activity.

Persönlichkeit, Typ A/B-Verhalten und Lebensgewohnheiten bei Rauchern und Nichtrauchern

In a smoker-nonsmoker questionnaire comparison (421 healthy subjects), differences among personality scores were obtained in women only for openness. Across the life style variables, coffee consumption was in both sexes higher in smokers. Additionally in men, frequency of sport activity and healthy eating habits were lower, and in women vacation planing was lower, alcohol consumption and the feeling of being weighted by problems were higher in smokers than nonsmokers. No difference could be seen in six components of the Type A/B behavior.