Determinants of physical activity in chilean children and youths aged 5-17 years

Abstract

During the last decades, the abundant study of Physical Activity has reached very uniform conclusions about the benefits of its regular practice. However, the prevalence of sedentary lifestyles continues to increase. For this reason, the present work aims to analyze the different determinants on Physical Activity in children and adolescents. For this we use a database the 2019 National Survey of Physical Activity and Sports habits in population between 5 and 17 years published in Chile. The survey considered data on socioeconomic, geographic and demographic variables, having a scope of the all Chilean national territory, separated by the different regions of our country, and having a sample of 5059 subjects, with a nationwide sampling error of ±1.38%. The results were obtained from a binary logistic regression model was used to calculate the weighting of each variable independently and as a whole on the dependent variable. The results of the parsimony model show that the incidence of the independent variables on the PA of young people is better adjusted to the data. Among the results it is highlighted that the geographical variable, reported that living in the Northern and Metropolitan Zone of the country is a risk factor for children who present mostly physical inactivity, so it is possible to conclude that a high level of urbanization that the different geographical zones present, together with the access to different types of mobilization and green areas available, have a high influence on the level of Physical Activity a in children and adolescents.