Self-Related Health, Physical Activity and Complaints in Swedish High School Students

Abstract

The aim of this investigation was to study self-related health, physical activity and level of exertion, as well as body complaints in Swedish high school students. A total of 993 high school students aged 16–19 years participated in the study. A questionnaire was completed at school and included questions about self-related health, physical activity behavior, type of physical activity/sport, intensity, duration, possible injuries or complaints, and absence from physical training at school, during the last 3 months. The results showed that 26% of the high school students participated in sports on a regular basis. Males reported significantly better health than females (p < 0.0005). A significantly higher number of females participated in physical activities at a lower level of effort (p < 0.0005) and a higher number of males trained at a higher level of effort (p < 0.005). Sixtyone percent reported body pain during the last 3 months, representing a higher number of females than males (p = 0.03). A higher number of females than males reported complaints from the back (p = 0.002), the knees (p = 0.015), the neck (p = 0.001), and the hip (p = 0.015). Females with body complaints reported poorer health than those without complaints. There was a correlation between poor self-related health and a lower level of physical effort (0.219; p < 0.001). The results showed that the prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms was high in this population and demonstrated a certain association with self-related health. Therefore, it is important to make it easy for adolescents to perform physical activity at school and during their leisure time in order to prevent chronic diseases.

Physical activity, health, body mass index, sleeping habits and body complaints in Australian senior high school students

“…The Finnish study also reported 24% to 28% of girls and 32% to 36% of boys to be extremely physical active, 4-5 times a week (14). This is somewhat more than in the present study and a Norwegian study by Alricsson et al (15), but similar to a Swedish study (9). This difference could indicate that some students reported physical activity when they have performed non organized activities, such as when they had probably walked or went by bike to school.…”

“…The results of the questionnaire were analyzed using the Statistical Program for Social Science (SPSS) 15 to estimate a model for good health. The level of significance was set at 5 %.…”

An 8-week thoracic spine stabilization exercise program improves postural back pain, spine alignment, postural sway, and core endurance in university students:a randomized controlled study

“…Young adult university students who spend too much time sitting with a slouched posture during studying, computer use, or daily activities are a risk group. Moreover, sedentary behavior, inadequate nutrition, and stress in this group may increase the potential risk (23)(24)(25). Revealing accurate strategies for prevention and treatment might be of utmost importance.…”

Fatores associados à saúde positiva autorreferida em jovens ativos na região nordeste, Brasil

“…The behavior variables were presented in the following manner: smoking habit (smokers versus non-smokers), drinking habit (yes versus no). Stress was evaluated with the use of a likert scale with four possibilities for an answer (rarely stressed, sometimes stressed, almost always stressed and excessively stressed); however, in order to better adjust the data analysis, (rarely stressed added to sometimes stressed ) was classified as positive perception and (almost always stressed added to excessively stressed) as negative perception; while self-rated health was performed using the following question 11 : How do you evaluate your health? with five choices for an answer (very good, good, average, bad and very bad).…”

“…Similarly, some demographic and socio-economic factors as well as other related to lifestyle are directly associated with health self-evaluation in industrialists 4,5 , adults 6,7 and in the elderly 8 , being able to determine a positive or negative perception, which contributes to the development of future interventions in many population subgroups 9 . Moreover, negative self-rated health is associated with higher frequency of chronic diseases 10 , smoking over 20 cigarettes a day, insufficient levels of physical activities 11,12 , low weight or obesity 13 , female sex, advanced age, low educational background and compromised health 14 . Some studies have shown that physically active men present better self-rated health compared to the insufficiently active ones [15][16][17] .…”