Physical activity among Chinese school-aged children： National prevalence estimates from the 2016 Physical Activity and Fitness in China The Youth Study

Purpose： This study was to present national estimates of participating in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity （MVPA） and adherence to the recommendations of 60 rain/day of MVPA among Chinese school-aged children and to assess demographic differences in MVPA. Methods： Cross-sectional analyses of data from the 2016 Physical Activity and Fitness in China--The Youth Study. Participants were 90,712 primary, junior middle, and junior high school children （boy： 47%; girl： 53%）, recruited from 1204 rural and urban schools across 32 administrative provinces and regions in the Mainland of China. Main outcomes were （a） average MVPA minutes per day in the previous 7 days by self-reports and （b） percentage meeting MVPA recommendations. Results： Average MVPA time was 45.4 rain/day, with boys having more MVPA （47.2 min/day） than girls （43.7 min/day） overall and across the 3 school grade categories. About 30% of participants met MVPA recommendations, with a higher percentage of boys （32%） than girls （28%） overall and across the 3 grades categories. Urban school children outperformed rural children in terms of MVPA time. Overall, boys were more likely to meet MVPA recommendations （adjusted odds ratio （aOR） = 1.19, 95% confidence interval （CI）： 1.16-1.22） compared with girls; children in higher grades （junior middle （aOR = 0.92, 95%CI： 0.87-0.98） and junior high （aOR = 0.59, 95%CI： 0.53-0.66）） were less likely to meet recommenda- tions compared with primary school children. The odds of meeting recommendations did not differ between urban and rural children （p = 0.07）, but urban boys were found to be more likely to meet recommendations compared with rural boys （aOR = 1.14, 95%CI： 1.06-1.19）. Conclusion： Overall, the average MVPA minutes per day among Chinese school-aged children is low, and less than one-third of them meet MVPA recommendations. These results were most evident among junior middle and junior high school children and those living rural areas. 2017 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V on behalf of Shanghai University of Sport. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license （http：//creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/）.