Does sports club participation contribute to physical activity among children and adolescents? A comparison across six European countries

Background and purpose: The majority of children and adolescents in Europe fail to meet the Physical activity (PA) recommendations. However it remains that sports club activity is the most prevalent form of organised leisure... [ view full abstract ]

Background and purpose: The majority of children and adolescents in Europe fail to meet the Physical activity (PA) recommendations. However it remains that sports club activity is the most prevalent form of organised leisure activity for youth in many countries. While participation in sports club activities is known to enhance the probability of reaching the recommended moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) level, less is known about the contribution of sports club participation to vigorous PA (VPA) and few international comparisons have been carried out. Therefore, the aim is to present if participation in sports club activities contributes to meeting the MVPA and VPA recommendations among children and adolescents across six European countries, namely Belgium (Flanders), Czech Republic, Finland, France, Ireland and Sweden.

Methods: Analysis were carried out on previous national (mostly HBSC) and regional data sets using descriptive statistics and logistic regression.

Results: Results indicate that approximately two-thirds (60-69 %) of children and adolescents take part in sports clubs activities. Sports club participants were more likely to meet the MVPA recommendation (OR 2.4-6.4) and the VPA recommendation (OR 2.8-5.0) than non-members in these countries.

Conclusions and implications: Sports clubs have an important position in PA promotion for younger populations. However there are shortcomings that still need to be tackled, as there still is a significant proportion of sports club participants who do not meet the recommendations for PA. Girls participate less in sport club activities than boys and also less frequently meet the recommendations. More can be done to get different groups of children and adolescents to participate in sports clubs activities. One way to recruit and retain sports clubs participants is to work according to the concept of health promoting sports clubs (HPSC), in which the core-business of the clubs is linked to health promotion.