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The Physical Activity Alliance, the nation’s largest national coalition dedicated to advancing regular participation in physical activity, has released the 2024 United States Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth.
The overall physical activity grade for children and youth remained low at D-, the same grade it received in 2022 when the last report was issued.
Bethany Forseth, Ph.D., a researcher at the University of Kansas Medical Center and assistant professor in the Department of Physical Therapy, Rehabilitation Science and Athletic Training at KU School of Health Professions, led the fitness section of the report card.
“There is an abundance of research showing that physical activity is good for the health and development of children,” Forseth said. “I think this Report Card is important because it provides a quick and easy way to see how active children are in our society. This information can help inform advocacy and policy decisions at the national and local levels that will improve the health of our children.”
The 2024 Executive Summary and Full Report are provided here: https://paamovewithus.org/us-report-card-on-physical-activity-for-children-and-youth/The grade was derived from National Survey of Children’s Health and National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data that showed:•
Only 20% to 28% of 6- to 17-year-olds meet the 60 minutes of daily physical activity recommended by the U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans.
The proportion of children who meet the physical activity guidelines has decreased slightly since 2016, when these data were first available.
The report card is made up of 11 indicators (or areas) that are graded, and Forseth led the Fitness Indicator.
“What we typically observe in research is that higher levels of health-related fitness are associated with a decreased risk of chronic diseases; in this section we'd hope to see that our children are fit. What we found is that most measures of health-related fitness are not captured in current surveillance efforts, and we don't know the current fitness levels of our youth,” Forseth said.
While fitness is difficult to measure with the current tools, it’s clear that physical activity remains far too low.
“Children’s physical activity is highly influenced by factors within our communities,” said Jordan Carlson, Ph.D., professor of pediatrics at Children’s Mercy Kansas City and chair of the 2024 United States Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth. “Human bodies were designed to move and be active, but modern society has made life more sedentary. We need to re-engineer our environments and routines to build activity back in. This means providing more opportunities for children to be active that are safe and enjoyable. Policy makers and other community leaders can support children’s health by carefully considering the important role all sectors of society play in removing barriers to physical activity.”
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of 2021 more than 40% of school-aged children and adolescents had at least one chronic health condition such as asthma or obesity. In 2022, a report published in JAMA Pediatrics found that nearly one in three adolescents now meet the criteria for prediabetes and the rate among 12- to 19-year-olds had more than doubled from 11% to 28% between 1999 and 2018.
“Improving the health of our young people will require parents, teachers, health professionals, community leaders and policy makers working together to change the systems and settings impacting youth health,” said Pam Watts, CAE, president of the Physical Activity Alliance and executive director of NIRSA: Leaders in Collegiate Recreation. “As the nation’s largest coalition dedicated to making the active choice the easy choice, PAA is the home for the collaborations and coordinated effort needed to reverse these trends and improve our physical activity grade.”