Probably the most active population in the world: accelerometer measurements of 72 school-children in Greenland

• Published in: International Journal of Circumpolar Health
• Main Authors: Christina Schnohr, Trine Fuhr-Nielsen, Sarah O. Sørensen, Birgit Niclasen, Christina Viskum Lytken Larsen
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2023
• Subjects: Physical activity; school-children; measurement properties; questionnaire data; accelerometer measures; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Arctic; Greenland; Circumpolar Health; greenlandic; International Journal of Circumpolar Health
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1080/22423982.2023.2289283; https://doaj.org/article/bd9b3e165e454d14a5f681d84df66bec

ABSTRACTPhysical activity is the most important lifestyle factor to contribute to a healthy early life. International recommendations are that children should be vigorously physically active for at least 1 h per day, and in Greenland, authorities have claimed a goal of being the world’s most active population. Since 1994, the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) has measured physical activity among school-children in Greenland by questionnaire data, but the measurement properties of self-reported data in comparison to more objectively measured accelerometer data are unknown. The present paper describes the first study using clinical measures of physical activity among Greenlandic youth. Seventy-two school-children (56% girls) with a mean age of 12 years (range 25%; 75% was 11.5; 12.25) wore accelerometers for seven consecutive days, and data produced significant and informative findings for both practice and future research. Fifty-two per cent of the school-children met the international recommendations of being physically active >1 h per day, when measured by accelerometers, but self-reported data reported a prevalence of 10% meeting the recommendations. A majority of this sample of Greenlandic school-children lives up to international recommendations, which indicates that the goal of being the world’s most active population is within reach.