Physical activity plays an important role in the development of a child. In order to have the intended effect on the child, it has to be properly structured. The duty of educators is to be aware of the significance of physical activity on the child’s overall development process and health, as well as to raise awareness of the more and more common problem amongst children – physical inactivity. Due to development of technology, the public has become more static and therefore increasingly inactive, which is why it is everyone’s task to motivate children to engage in physical activities, which are suited to their abilities, correctly structured and easily accessible to the child. The effects of living an active childhood develop physical abilities as well as overall development, maintaining a healthy lifestyle and establishing a positive self-image. There is a high probability that a physically active adolescent will make the transition into a physically active adult.
The aim of this master’s degree is to analyze physical abilities of children between the ages of 6 to 9 and compare them by gender, quantity and intensity of physical activity. In order to collect the data, we monitored children’s results in various activities, such as standing broad jump, cube insertion, backward polygon, Flamingo test, hand clapping and 300 meters run. A Research has been carried out on 951 children, who have had their physical abilities analyzed. On the subsample of 56 participants we have also measured the quantity and intensity of physical activity with the help of an accelerometer. We decided to go with the advanced approach, using an accelerometer, in order to get a more accurate perspective on the topic than if we were to use the obsolete, self-assessing methods, used in the past. We have checked the data using set hypotheses, which were processed with OriginPro8 and Microsoft Excel 2010 and verified using a t-test and Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient.
We have determined that the quantity of physical activity does not ascend as children become older. Apart from the high intensity physical activities, there have been no instances of distinctions in results between genders. Boys tend to rank higher on the physical fitness tests, with the exception of cube insertion test. The results have also shown that boys in all age groups do not pursue medium to high intensity physical activities for longer periods of time. The intensity of physical activity does not decline with the increase in children’s age.
We have established a conclusion that there are no statistically significant differences when comparing inactive participants and participants with low physical fitness level as well as in conjunction with participants with medium or high intensive physical fitness level.
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