Physical activity causes acute physiological and long-term adaptive responses in the body. It is a protective factor for coronary heart disease (CHD) in adults. It has been assumed that children younger than 8 years of age may be in general active enough and there would be hardly any relationships between physical activity and CHD risk factors in early childhood. One hundred and fifty-five children (age 4-7 years) participated in this physical activity study during three consecutive years. Physical activity was examined twice a year with a special-purpose physical activity diary. CHD risk factors were measured during annual health care visits in the Specific Turku Coronary Risk-Factor Intervention Project (STRIP). We found that physical activity was related to CHD risk factors in early childhood. Among the girls, low-activity playing was related to a higher BMI. At the mean age of 6 years, high-activity playing was negatively related to serum total cholesterol (r=-0.32*) and positively to the high-density lipoprotein (HDL)/total cholesterol ratio (r=0.37**). The negative relationship between high-activity playing and triglycerides was highest (r=-0.32*) at the mean age of six. Among 4-year-old boys, playing outdoors correlated positively with serum HDL cholesterol concentration (r=0.29*) and the HDL/total ratio (r=0.35**). At the age of 5 years, physically active playing correlated positively with systolic blood pressure (r=0.25*). Playing outdoors and high-activity playing already have important health-maintaining effects in 4-7-year-old children. These positive effects differ between genders. (*P<0.05 **P<0.01)

This pilot study was designed to investigate, rstly, professional dance students' goal orientations, secondly their perceptions of the purposes of dance, and thirdly, their views on the purpose of dance in relation to their goal perspectives. The subjects were 72 female dance students from six major dance programmes in Finland. The mean age of the subjects was 21.7 years. The data were collected using the Perception of Success Questionnaire (POSQ), which was used to determine dance students' goal orientation, along with the Purpose of Dance Questionnaire (PDQ).Factor analysis was used in order to identify goal orientation as well as general categories of the perceived purposes of dance. Relationships between goal perspectives and perceived purposes of dance were determined on the basis of correlations. It was found that dancers emphasised task-oriented goals far more than ego-oriented goals. Factor analysis of the purpose of dance revealed seven factors of which the factors, Physically Active/ Mastery, Good Citizen, and Reaching for High Standards were perceived as most important. The lowest ratings were assigned to the factor Competitiveness. Task orientation was positively related to the beliefs that dance should promote a feeling of well-being and teach people to be physically active as well as to set high standards and be mentally tough. Ego-oriented dance students emphasised social status and a high career, competitiveness and not giving up. The relevance of the scales (POSQ and PDQ) used in this study among dance students is discussed.

Rationale One would like to think that dancers hold positive attitudes toward many forms of dance, not just their own. Maybe this is a reason why researchers have not been interested in studying the attitudes of dancers toward dance. However, there have always been conflicts (e.g., which teachers, dancers, dance schools, dance genres should be supported by grants and awards) among dancers in Finland, thus Finnish dance-policy groups have held discussions about improving cooperation both among dancers representing different dance forms and between dancers and artists in other fields. As a result the Dance Council of Finland was founded in 1980 as an organization with board members from various art dance organizations, folk dance organizations and the Finnish Dance Sport Association. The aims of the Dance Council were, among others, to increase cohesion among dancers and to improve the public perception, appreciation and funding of dance. The Dance Council initiated a dance magazine, Tanssi (Dance). However, according to Laine (1991), who was chair of the Dance Council and director of the Finnish National Ballet, the process was problematic and slow. Today, the Dance Council has changed its name to Tanssin tiedotuskeskus (Dance Information Centre) and its aims have also changed: cooperation among dance forms and the different fields of dance is no longer emphasized. Consequently, today the magazine Tanssi deals only with art dance. Thus, it seems that a single organization cannot succeed in serving all dancers with different interests and problems. In spite of the many problems, the last two decades have been a highly positive time for dance in Finland with dance teacher education finally commencing both at the university level (The Dance Department at the Theater Academy of Finland) and at the vocational level (conservatories). Today it is possible to study dance education to achieve teacher certification in ballet, modern dance, folk dance, and ballroom dance. Because education is considered important in attitude formation we might expect that information given during courses and contacts between dance students would improve relations between them. To date we know little about dancers' attitudes toward each other. Even though attitude formation and attitude change have been seen as important factors in education, only a few Pipsa Nieminen, Ph.D., is a lecturer in dance in the Department of Physical Education, University of Jyvaskyla. This article is based on research conducted for her doctoral dissertation at the University of Jyvaskyla. The author gratefully acknowledges the Finnish Ministry of Education for providing financial support.