Continuing Nursing Education
Leisure Time Activities and Obesity in School-Aged Inner City African American and Hispanic Children
Anne Hall BrandesThis
descriptive-correlational study investigated three research questions:
(a) What are the leisure time activities (LTA) of school-aged African
American and Hispanic boys and girls?, (b) What are their body mass
index (BMI) distributions?, and (c) What relationships exist between
total activity scores of LTA and BMI in the total sample of children,
and for boys and girls analyzed separately? The convenience sample
consisted of 78 children, aged 9 to 14, who were in the fifth to
seventh grades of two elementary schools. Children responded to a
modified version of the Know Your Body Health Habits Survey to assess
LTA; BMI was calculated based on child height and weight. Results
indicated that the LTAs of this group of African American and Hispanic
children and their distribution of BMIs were similar to those of White
children, and that no appreciable relationships existed between LTAs
and BMI in the sample as a whole or boys and girls analyzed separately. |