Physical activity and creativity of children and youths

Abstract

Background: Childhood is an important period for developing maturity in thinking. Accumulating evidence shows the association between physical activity and cognitive function. Although both the intelligence quotient and emotional quotient have been reported to be associated with physical activity, there is a limited amount of published research regarding the association between physical activity and cognitive function in children and youths. With respect to creativity, an important skill for the twenty-first century, little evidence on the creative quotient promotion in childhood is available. The present study, therefore, is designed to explore the correlation between physical activity and creativity. Methods: The participants included 1447 students with different age groups in 34 schools from Southern Thailand. Age groups were categorized according to Thailand's 2016 Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth, where 521 students were aged 6-9 years, 487 students were aged 10-13 years, and 439 students were aged 14-17 years. Creativity was measured through the use of the Test for Creative Thinking-Drawing Production (TCT-DP). Active play, time with family and peers, and sedentary behavior were monitored by the Thailand Physical Activity Children Survey-the Student Questionnaire (TPACS-SQ). Results: The correlation between the TCT-DP score representing creativity and active play was noticed in adolescents (r = 0.148, p = 0.001), but not found in participants aged 6-13 years. Active play was associated with time with family and peers in all age groups (r = 0.485, p < 0.001). Conclusions: The present data supports the idea that optimal physical activity is required during childhood for developing thinking process. Promotion of active play with family and peers may facilitate creativity skills.

Awareness of COVID-19 influences on the wellness of Thai health professional students: An ambulatory assessment during the early “new normal” informing policy

“…However, moderate quality of life was determined in half of the students; and some of them had poor quality of life. The reported health risks among these Thai health professional students were similar to those reported in previous studies among adolescents in which sedentary behavior, obesity, and mental health problems had been prominent [34][35][36][37]. The present study strongly supports evidence-informed policies for preventing health risk behaviors and promoting wellness among Thai youth, where factors resulting in health risk behaviors among them should be clarified.…”

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“…La inteligencia es el término más estudiado (Belmonte et al, 2017;Mededovic y Dordevic, 2017;Nakano et al, 2015;Pérez-Fuentes et al, 2020;Ramírez et al, 2019;Rico et al, 2016;Rodríguez et al, 2016) seguidamente del rendimiento académico (Alonso et al, 2015;Bermejo et al, 2014;Caballero y Fernández, 2018;Castañeda et al, 2017;Pérez-Fuentes et al, 2019;Ramos et al, 2017). Los demás estu-dios se enfocan en otras variables relacionadas con la motricidad (Méndez y Fernández, 2019;Piya-amornphan et al, 2020), las matemáticas (Gontijo y Fleith, 2009;Zainudin et al, 2019;), la personalidad y en conocer las diferencias existentes entre género y nivel educativo (Esparza et al, 2015).…”

“…Por otro lado, las relacionadas con estudiantes de secundaria hacen hincapié en la motricidad, solución de problemas matemáticos, personalidad y diferencias entre género y nivel educativo (Esparza et al, 2015;Gontijo y Fleith, 2009;Méndez y Fernández, 2019;Piya-amornphan et al, 2020;Zainudin et al, 2019).…”

Regular Vigorous-Intensity Physical Activity and Walking Are Associated with Divergent but not Convergent Thinking in Japanese Young Adults

“…However, two studies that evaluated convergent thinking with matchstick puzzles failed to find any effects of similar PA programs [17,18]. Similarly, the identified cross-sectional studies consistently found positive associations between self-reported or actigraph-monitored regular PA and measures of divergent thinking in all or a subgroup of subjects [23,24,26] but not convergent thinking (i.e., insight problem-solving quizzes, [25]).…”

“…We, therefore, searched (1) interventional studies that investigated the effects of multiple sessions of PA interventions on creative thinking and (2) observational studies that investigated the association between the levels of regular PA and creative thinking (see the literature search strategy described in the footnote of Table S1). As a result, we identified six interventional studies ( [17][18][19][20][21][22], see Table S1) and four observational studies ( [23][24][25][26], see Table S2).…”