Assessment Of Adolescents' Daily Physical Activity & It’s Relation To Obesity In Secondary Schools At AL-Najaf AL-Ashraf City

Objectives : To assess the second ary schools adolescents’ daily physical activity& It’s Relation to Obesity. Methodology A descriptive study is carried out at Secondary Schools in AL-Najaf AL-Ashraf City, from December 1 st , 2011 to April 6 th , 2012.A multi stage sample of (1350) subjects were selected throughout the use of probability sampling. The data are collected through the use of semi-constructed questionnaire designed for the purpose of the study, which consist of three parts (1) Sociodemographic data form that consist of 14-items (2) daily physical activity Scale that consists of 10-items (3) Anthropometric Measurements which consists of Weight and Height. Reliability of the questionnaire is determined through a pilot study and the validity through a panel of (24) experts. Results The finding of the present study indicated that there is significant relationship between the daily physical activity for the study participants' and parents social status while the daily physical activity and the other variables indicated no significant relationship. The results also shows no significant relationship between the daily physical activity and the body mass index. Conclusion Present study concluded that most of the secondary schools adolescents have daily physical activity problems. Recommendation


INTRODUCTION
It is important that all activities be conducted in accordance with school board1 policies and guidelines.Principals should make all school staff involved in the planning and implementing of daily physical activity aware of board policies, procedures, and guidelines regarding physical activity, including those related to safety.Physical inactivity has been identified as the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality (6% of deaths globally).Overweight and obesity are responsible for 5% of global mortality (1) .
Adolescence progresses in stages.Early adolescence begins with the first physical changes of puberty, which can occur as early as 10 but generally occurs between the ages of 12 and 14years.Middle adolescence is considered to be approximately ages 14 to 16-17years; late adolescence occurs from approximate ages 17 to 20years.The transition from primary to secondary school is a period of anxiety for many children as they face different life and social experiences; major physical, biological, and cognitive changes; and emotional distress.Although parental attachment, when secure initially, remains strong, primary relationships once based mainly on family shift to peers who exert greater influence on social behavior and moral development.Whereas same-sex peer relationships were the norm in childhood, most adolescents now develop opposite-sex friendships and socialize in mixed-gender groups.Social comparison increases and can affect both selective and global selfesteem (2) .
Nearly all children attend school; therefore, the school can play a significant role in increasing their physical activity levels and habits.The association between physical activity and weight status is stronger for vigorous physical activity than for moderate physical activity.Concerning sedentary behaviors, It has been reported a positive association between television viewing and adiposity, mainly in children younger than ten at baseline, suggesting that TV viewing is a risk factor for the development of overweight/obesity in children (3) .
The major intervention components included a modification of existing physical education curricula and materials, teacher training, and on-site consultation to teachers.These results provide evidence that with proper training and support, modification of the school environment can affect the activity levels of children and adolescents substantially.Sports programs also can provide opportunity for physical activity; in fact, most children's physical activity takes place in organized programs outside of school.Unfortunately, many of these programs are directed toward elite athletes and involve only a minority of the youth population.Improving the school physical education programs and involving more than elite athletes in sports programs can play a pivotal role in increasing physical activity levels of children and adolescents (4) .
Physical activity is a key component of energy balance and is promoted in children and adolescents as a lifelong positive health behavior.Physical activity is to be encouraged among children and adolescents based largely on the assumption that the behavior will become part of the person's life and carry into adulthood, where it will help lower the risk of several chronic diseases as well as of premature mortality In order for a daily physical activity program to be successful, students need to develop a commitment to building a more active school.They need to do more than simply participate in the activities: they also need to be involved in the process of planning and implementing daily physical activity.Students should develop the necessary knowledge and skills to assess their own level of fitness; create a plan to determine their short-term and long-term goals; and identify when they have achieved their goals.As students progress through the grades, they can become active role models in the school and active mentors for younger students (5) .
Body Mass Index is a widely used method to define the relationship between weight and height.The Charts of BMI relative to age are used to determine childhood weight status.WHO recommends the use of age and gender-specific BMI for age percentiles for children and adolescents to assess body weight status, where overweight is defined as a BMI ≥ 85th percentile and obesity as a BMI ≥ 95th percentile (6) .

METHODOLOGY Study Design:
A descriptive study is conducted through the period between December 1st, 2011 to April 6th, 2012 in-order to assess of adolescents' daily physical activity in secondary schools at al-Najaf al-Ashraf City.Study Sample: A multi stage sample of (1350) subjects, were selected throughout the use of probability sampling.The sample of study is divided into two stages which include: First stage: schools selection by stratified-cluster.AL-Najaf City divided to six districts.The schools selected randomly (18) schools boys and girls, from (110) total schools in AL-Najaf City.Second stage: students' selection by disproportional stratified sampling.From each schools randomly selected (75) students.The total of students were (1350), (675) boys and (675) girls, their age between 13 to 16 years.The Study Instruments: The final study instrument consisted of three major parts and those parts are: Part 1: Sociodemographic data Form: an sociodemographic data sheet, consisted of many items categorized as general information (gender, birth date, level of education, total number of siblings and number of student between siblings); and socioeconomic data(parents social status, parents occupation status, parents education levels, family type, family number, number of rooms, type of house, house area, house content and car possession), Part 2: daily physical activity domain items (10-items).The adolescents' daily physical activity was measured by the Arabic version, this is a 10-items questionnaire that uses a 3 -point Likert-type scale for responses.Part 3: Anthropometric Measurements: Weight Electronic weighting was used to obtain the weight.The scale was placed on a hard-floor surface.Height was measured for all participants, with the students bare footed and head upright.Data collection: Data collected by utilizing of the Adopted & developed questionnaire.Weight, Height are checked for each participant.The data collection process has been performed from February 19th until April 16th 2012.Each subject takes approximately (5-10) minute to respond to the interview.Data Analyses: In order to achieve the early stated objectives, the data of the study were analyzed through the use of statistical package of social sciences (SPSS) version 16through descriptive and inferential statistical analyses.

BMI percentiles
No Table (1) shows that more than half of the study sample in regard to their BMI percentile has normal weight (65.2 %), only (17.3 %) were obese, and (15.2 %) were overweight.Table (2) shows the distribution of the study sample by their responses to the daily physical activity domain, the results reflect that the higher percentage of the study participants (86.7%) have low daily physical activity, Only (1%) have good level of daily physical activity.Table (3) shows highly significant correlation between the daily physical activity domains and the parents social status at p-value (0.011).While there is a nonsignificant relationship with other general information at p-value more than (0.05).