Sport promoting healthy behaviour

Hemal Shroff, PhDAssistant ProfessorSchool of Health Systems StudiesTata Institute of Social Sciences

Introduction

Relationship between physical activity (sport) and healthy behaviour

Literature on sport and avoiding illness

Literature on sport and avoiding risky behaviour

Literature on sport and promoting healthy behaviour

Why sport in adolescence?

Building body imagePositive habit formingLink with NCD’s later in life

Objectives of the study

Assess and map the play patterns of children Explore the food, alcohol and substance

consumption patterns of the children Ascertain the relationship as well as the

influence between the above two factors (i.e. play and nutritious food/alcohol/substance usage).

Compare the food and substance consumption patterns between children enrolled in Magic bus programme and those not enrolled in the programme.

Description of the sample The sample consisted of 300 adolescents The mean age was 12.82 (SD = 1.04) 150 were from the magic bus programme

and 150 were not. There were 123 girls and 177 boys, but

these were approximately similarly divided in the two groups (MB = 93 boys and 57 girls; non MB = 85 boys and 66 girls)

There were 100 adolescents each from Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi.

Variables

Tobacco use (smoked, smokeless) – ever freq., duration, number of cigarettes/bidis,

Alcohol – ever, frequency, duration Inhalants – ever, frequency, time Play patterns – kind of play, who with,

frequency (weekly), time Food consumption – healthy food

intake, unhealthy food intake Other variables – age, family income,

pocket money, BMI, school enrollment status, grade

Results – play patterns of adolescents

Engaged in some group physical activity = 264 adolescents.

Mean time spent on play (whole sample) reported in minutes/weekly: (SD = )

There was a significant difference in time spent on physical activity between the two groups.

The mean value for MB children was 528 minutes/weekly (SD = 396) while for non-magic bus children the mean value was 348 minutes/weekly (SD = 449).

Who played with and roles

Who played with

Other chil-dren (boys and/or girls)

Friends:

Bhaiya/CYL

Teacher/Sir/Madam

What was played

Cricket or equivalent (bat-ting and bowl-ing)Football

Kho-kho

Kabaddi

Running

Badminton/surya namaskar/langdi

Players/members

Leaders

Results – alcohol consumption

A total of 7 children reported ever trying alcohol. Of these 3 reported current use of alcohol.

When asked how much they had tried it, the highest percentage of children had tried it only once (N = 3; 42%).

Among those currently consuming alcohol, the frequency of use was 1.5 days in a month.

There was no significant difference between magic bus and non-magic bus children in any of the alcohol consumption variables.

Results – tobacco consumption In the total sample, 50 children reported

ever trying tobacco products. When asked how much they had tried it,

the highest percentage of children had tried it for more than one month (N = 31; 63%) and the average duration was 2 months.

More MB children have ever tried tobacco (39) in comparison with non-MB adolescents (11) and this difference is significant.

Results – tobacco consumption There were a total of 19 adolescents

currently using tobacco (smoked and/or smokeless). Approximately 7 children reported consuming tobacco in both smoked and smokeless forms.

The difference between the two groups was small and non-significant (4 versus 3 for MB and non-MB children respectively for tobacco in smoked forms).

The difference in smokeless tobacco consumption is also small and non-significant (10 vs 8 for MB and non MB children).

Alcohol andtobacco use

05

10152025303540

Ever tried tobaccoCurrent use tobacco

Mag

ic b

us

Non-m

agic b

us0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Ever tried alcoholCurrent use alcohol

Results – inhalant use

A total of 5 children from the sample reported ever trying inhalants.

They used terms like "gul" or "solution" to describe the products they were using.

Out of these 5 children, 3 reported current use. The ones reporting current use stated they had been using them for 2 months.

There were no differences in the number of adolescents using inhalants between the two groups.

Results – food consumption

Healthy food intake (fruits, vegetables, milk, milk products and eggs) was roughly the same for the children enrolled in the magic bus programme and those not enrolled (MB = 22.07; Non-MB = 22.66).

Unhealthy food intake (fried food, cakes, biscuits, aereated and non-aereated sweetened drinks) was significantly different between the children enrolled in the magic bus programmes and those not enrolled (MB = 13.8; Non-MB= 14.97). Thus, adolescents enrolled in the Magic bus programmes ate less unhealthy food.

Relations among variables

Engaging in physical activity was significantly related to unhealthy and healthy food intake.

There were no relationships between physical activity and amount of tobacco/alcohol/inhalants used or duration or frequency.

This may be due to the small numbers of adolescents engaging in use.

Results – comparison between MB and non MB adolescents The children not enrolled in the magic bus

programmes reported eating significantly more unhealthy food.

More children from the Magic bus programmes had attempted using tobacco, but the number of current users were not very different between the two groups.

Pattern of use in tobacco was found to be similar as for alcohol.

The number of adolescents who had ever tried inhalants and those currently using them were approximately the same in both groups.

Conclusions

The connection between engaging in physical activity and other health-related behaviours exists.

This connection appears to support the notion that engaging in physical activity helps individuals make better choices in terms of not engaging in substance use and eating better.

Recommendations

What does all this mean for NCD’s?

What are the steps forward in terms of the magic bus programmes?

What are the steps forward in terms of future research?

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