Selected nutritional behaviors and physical activity among elementary school children

Introduction: Proper nutrition and physical activity are very important elements in the proper functioning and development of children. The lack of daily, systematic physical effort in younger and younger age groups is a public health problem. Purpose: To evaluate the nutrition and physical activity of children attending primary school. Materials and methods: The study was conducted among 707 pupils form randomly selected elementary schools using the authors’ own questionnaire in the school year 2013/2014. The questionnaire included questions on selected dietary habits and physical activity as well as the socio-economic conditions of the families. Results: Among the studied children, 88.6% consumed 4 or 5 meals a day. There was a statistically significant relationship between the number of meals consumed and the age of the children. Breakfast was consumed by 86.4% of children, more often residents of the city than the village (88.0% vs. 81.7%, p <0.05). Daily consum-ption of second breakfast was declared by 71.5% of boys and 74.2% of girls. The vast majority of the studied students (86.8%) have always taken part in physical education classes. Outdoor leisure time was declared by 75% of the surveyed children. Rural students showed greater involvement in outdoor activities than students from the city (86.1% vs. 70.2%, p <0.001). A total of 62.2% of boys and 51.8% of girls (p <0.05) participated in sports activities. Conclusions: Inappropriate nutrition and lack of physical activity affected both girls and boys, and the abnormalities were dependent on where they lived and were age-related.