Results from Chile’s 2018 Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth
Nicolas Aguilar-Farias, Pia Martino-Fuentealba and Andrea Cortinez-O’Ryan, on behalf of the Chile’s Report Card Research Work Group.
Background: The 2018 Chile’s Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth is a review of the evidence across 13 indicators of behaviors, settings and sources of influence associated with physical activity (PA) of Chilean children and youth.
Methods: A Research Work Group reviewed available evidence from publications, surveys, government documents and datasets to assign a grade for PA-related indicators based on the percentage of compliance for defined benchmarks. The 2018 Chile’s RC included the 10 core PA indicators that are common to the Global Matrix 3.0: Overall Physical Activity, Organized Sport Participation, Active Play, Active Transportation, Sedentary Behaviors, Physical Fitness, Family and Peers, School, Community and Environment, and Government. Additionally, we have included 3 additional indicators: Sleep, Inclusion, and Overweight and obesity. An A was defined as 80-100% of children accomplishing a given benchmark; B: 60-79%; C: 40-59%, D: 20-39%; F: 0-19%; INC is Incomplete data availability to assign score.
Results: Grades assigned were for i) ‘Behaviors that contribute to overall PA levels’: Overall PA, D-; Organized sport participation, D-; Active play, INC; and Active transportation, F; ii) ‘Factors associated with cardiometabolic risk’: Sedentary behavior, C-; Overweight and obesity, F; Fitness, D; Sleep, INC; iii) ‘Factors that influence PA’: Family and peers, F; School, D; Inclusion, INC; Community and built environment, B; Government strategies and investments, B-.
Conclusions: Overall, Chile’s grades remained low compared with the first RC. On the positive side, Chile is advancing in environmental and policy aspects. Attention should be paid to promote active transportation and support families and peers to promote PA. Our findings indicate that the implementation of new strategies should be developed through collaboration between different sectors to maximize effective investments in increasing PA and decreasing sedentary time among children and young people in Chile.