Health and relationships with leisure time activities in Swedish children aged 2-17 years

Background Three cross‐sectional time series studies, randomised and stratified for age and gender, were performed on children aged 2–17, studying their health and well‐being. The studies were performed in the Nordic countries in 1984, 1996 and 2011. Long‐term illness (LTI) and psychosomatic complaints (PSC) increased during the period. Data were collected from mailed questionnaires. Methods Data of 1461 Swedish children from 2011 were used and compared with data from 1984 and 1996. Relationships between the health indicators (the absence of LTI, 13 diagnoses, the absence of PSC, six symptoms, six items of well‐being) and 12 activities were analysed. Results A total of 83.2% of the children were healthy and 16.8% had at least one LTI, boys 19.1% and girls 14.5%. PSC increased from 18.6% in 1996 to 23.1% in 2011. The distribution was higher in girls. Girls were more active than boys during leisure time. ‘Reading books’, ‘visiting friends’, ‘listening to music’ and ‘activity in organisations’ were related to an absence of PSC, LTI and well‐being. ‘Surfing/blogging on the Internet’ was negatively related to LTI, PSC and well‐being. Multiple regression showed that that ‘visits or is visited by friends’ was related with a low probability for LTI and also with a high probability for well‐being. In the logistic regression analyses, the following variables were seen as promoting health most: ‘visits or is visited by friends’ and ‘is active in organizations’ for children aged 2–17 years, especially for boys and well‐being. Conclusions The health of Swedish children declined between 1984 and 2011. Positive relationships were found between some activities and health as well as other activities related to ill health. The results suggest an increased focus on the activities that have positive relationships with health in order to promote health among children.