A multilevel examination of gender differences in the association between features of the school environment and physical activity among a sample of grades 9 to 12 students in Ontario, Canada

BMC Public Health

Paul Veugelers¹  Susan Elliott³  Joel A Dubin⁴  Steve Manske⁵  Scott T Leatherdale²  Erin P Hobin⁵ 

[1] School of Public Health, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2T4, Canada;School of Public Health and Health Systems, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada;Faculty of Applied Health Sciences, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada;Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada;Propel Centre for Population Health Impact, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada

关键词: School;    Prevention;    Environment;    Gender;    Adolescents;    Physical activity;   

Others  :  1163901
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-12-74

 received in 2011-08-31, accepted in 2012-01-24,  发布年份 2012

【 摘 要 】

Background

Creating school environments that support student physical activity (PA) is a key recommendation of policy-makers to increase youth PA. Given males are more active than females at all ages, it has been suggested that investigating gender differences in the features of the environment that associate with PA may help to inform gender-focused PA interventions and reduce the gender disparity in PA. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to explore gender differences in the association between factors of the school environment and students' time spent in PA.

Methods

Among a sample of 10781 female and 10973 male students in grades 9 to 12 from 76 secondary schools in Ontario, Canada, student- and school-level survey PA data were collected and supplemented with GIS-derived measures of the built environment within 1-km buffers of the 76 schools.

Results

Findings from the present study revealed significant differences in the time male and female students spent in PA as well as in some of the school- and student-level factors associated with PA. Results of the gender-specific multilevel analyses indicate schools should consider providing an alternate room for PA, especially for providing flexibility activities directed at female students. Schools should also consider offering daily physical education programming to male students in senior grades and providing PA promotion initiatives targeting obese male students.

Conclusions

Although most variation in male and female students' time spent in PA lies between students within schools, there is sufficient between-school variation to be of interest to practitioners and policy-makers. More research investigating gender differentials in environment factors associated with youth PA are warranted.

【 授权许可】

   
2012 Hobin et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

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