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Journalism of Courage
School children in India, irrespective of age group or gender, are lagging far behind as far as health and fitness levels are concerned, revealed The EduSports’ 5th Annual School Health and Fitness Study 2014.
The study that covered 1,15,559 children in the age group between 7 to 17 years in 287 schools across 85 cities from 23 states, involved assessment of key health and physical fitness parameters like anaerobic capacity, flexibility, lower and upper body strength and BMI among others.
In a comparative study between boys and girls it was found that 65% of girls have healthier BMI scores compared to 59% of boys. However, girls scored lower than boys in other fitness parameters (anaerobic capacity, flexibility, upper body strength and abdominal strength), which indicates that they are still short on overall fitness.
Geographically, children in all five regions of the country were deemed more or less equally unfit with unhealthy BMI scores of 37% (Central), 54% (East) 37% (North), 38% (South) and 36% (West), but children from non-metros score highter than metros. Children in non-metros demonstrated better flexibility (75% in non-metros and 70% in metros), had good upper body strength (64% in non-metros and 61% in metros) and a marginal overall BMI score (61% in non-metros and 60% in metros).
Experts are of the opinion that due to modernisation and urban lifestyles, there is lesser time at disposal for sports and outdoor activities. In the current scenario, it is imperative that schools provide the best environment for encouraging sports and other outdoor activities apart from education.
The road ahead
Over 81,000 children across 287 schools who underwent 3+ classes per week, as against 2 or less classes per week of physical education, over a period of 9 months showed a marginal improvement of 1% in BMI levels. However, there was a significant improvement (4%)in case of lower body strength and (5%) in case of upper body strength.
A sub-group of over 27,918 kids children from 116 schools in 34 cities across India went through a structured sports programme over 24 months and experienced 2-4 sessions of structured sports/physical activity per week. Students showed significant improvement across fitness parameters including anaerobic capacity, flexibility, upper body strength and abdominal strength.
Speaking on the 5th edition of this landmark study, Saumil Majmudar, CEO & Co-founder of EduSports emphasised the need for schools to increase play hours for children. “The lack of health and fitness among such a large number of children yet again proves that physical activity/sports in schools should be viewed as an important part of the curriculum for the overall development of a child. There is a need for greater awareness about the importance of play and there must be more time allotted for the same. In the next year, we hope to see far better results.”
