On November 25,2019, researchers from the World Health Organisation(WHO) led by Regina Guthold from the WHO’s Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing Department, has produced a study on first ever global trends for adolescent insufficient physical activity.The study is about the level of physical activity in children. India ranked 8th in the world with the lowest level of insufficient physical activity among adolescents. Bangladesh topped the list among 146 countries.
Publication: The details of this study is published in the journal “The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health”.
Report:
Report on india:
- The insufficient physical activity in India was 74% (72% of boys and 76% of girls).
- 3/4th of Indian children lack sufficient physical activity. Yet, over the years Indian boys have shown little improvement with decrease in insufficient physical activity. Indian girls have not shown improvement.
- Improvement over years: Insufficient physical activity in 2001 was 76.6% which has now decreased to 73.9% in 2016.
- India and Bangladesh had the lowest levels of insufficient activity for girls due to factors such as increased domestic chores in the house.
General Report:
- Assessment: The assessment was based on all types of physical activities like time spent in active play, recreation and sports, active domestic chores, walking and cycling or other types of active transportation, physical education and planned exercise.
- United States(US) ranked 4th in the list.
- The report shows that urgent action is needed to increase the activity level in girls and boys aged between 11 and 17 years. The study was based on 1.6 million 11-17-year-old students across 146 countries.
- Girls’ activeness: Between 2001-2016 girls were less active than boys in all but 4 (Tonga, Samoa, Afghanistan and Zambia).
- More than 80% of the school going adolescent children did not meet the current recommendation of doing at least 1 hour of physical activity per day. This includes 85% of girls and 78% of boys.
About World Health Organisation:
Founded- 7 April 1948.
Headquarters- Geneva, Switzerland.
Director General(DG)- Tedros Adhanom.
