Social ecological model based analysis of sport exercise behaviors and associated factors among children and adolescents in Ningxia / 中国学校卫生

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To understand the influencing factors underlying physical exercise behavior among children and adolescents aged 9-18 years in Ningxia, China, in 2019, and to provide suggestions for physical exercise among children and adolescents by adopting a social ecological model.@*Methods@#Based on data related to 12 018 children and adolescents in Ningxia aged 9-18 years old which were obtained from the National Survey on Students Constitution and Health in 2019, the survey questions scored based on the four levels of the social ecological model.@*Results@#The proportion of children and adolescents who engaged in physical exercise for less than 1 hour a day accounted for 55.97% of the total number of people in Ningxia. Regardless of whether they were able to engage in enough physical activity, individual factors played a dominant role in influencing the behavior of the children and adolescents, and an interaction was found between influencing factors at different levels( r=-0.01, 0.01, -0.08, 0.04, P <0.01). The results of the stepwise regression analysis showed that the personal factors e.g. sports makes me healthy, I don t have enough time, muscle strength exercise, I have no movement of any relationship partner, sports make me know partner, policy in the number of physical education, number of sports meeting in a school year, the average daily lesson hold number all affect children s sports activities in time( B =-0.05-0.16, P <0.01).@*Conclusions@#The lack of physical exercise among children and adolescents in Ningxia is the result of multiple factors. Comprehensive and diversified intervention should be administered from a socio ecological framework to promote the formation of physical exercise habits among children and adolescents.