4363.0.55.001 - Australian Health Survey: Users' Guide, 2011-13
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 19/07/2013
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CHILD PHYSICAL ACTIVITY (2 TO 4 YEARS)
As per the national recommendations for this age group, physical activity does not need to be of a particular intensity and includes anything that involves movement. Population Information was collected for selected children aged 2 to 4 years in the NNPAS. Methodology The collection methodology of this module relied on the recall of an adult proxy on behalf of their selected child, and did not make use of a diary or other form of recording activities. To assess against the National Physical Activity Recommendations, respondents were asked a series of questions about the physical activity their child had undertaken in the last week. Due to the difficulty of calculating the amount of time a young child is physically active in a week, as well as the requirement to measure against recommendations that are based on meeting daily targets, questions were asked for each day in the seven days prior to interview. It was suggested to proxies that they may find it easier to think of what they themselves were doing on each day (for example, at work, doing gardening or chores, visiting friends, etc.) and during those times what arrangements were made for the child or what the child was doing. For each day respondents were asked about the total time spent (hours and minutes) doing the following activities:
This information was used to calculate whether a child met the physical activity recommendation by summing outdoor and indoor physical activity undertaken on each day. A child was considered to have met the physical activity recommendation for a given day if their activity totalled 180 minutes or more. Data Items The data items and related output categories for this topic are available in Excel spreadsheet format from the Downloads page of this product. Interpretation Points to be considered in interpreting data for this topic include the following:
Comparability with other surveys The questions comprising this topic have not previously been collected in an ABS survey. Due to the difficulties with collection of physical activity information for this age group, there is minimal other sources of data available on this topic. The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children has collected a small amount of data related to indoor and outdoor play. However this data is not considered comparable to the AHS.
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