Projects / Programmes
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 5.10.01 |
Social sciences |
Sport |
Kinesiology - pedagogical aspect (sport, training, motorial learning) |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| S273 |
Social sciences |
Physical training, motorial learning, sport |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 3.03 |
Medical and Health Sciences |
Health sciences |
children, adolescents, physical fitness, somatic and motor development, health-risk, healt benefit, trend
Researchers (11)
Organisations (1)
Abstract
In recent years, we have developed the My SLOfit application, which gives feedback to teachers, parents, adolescents and doctors by comparing the child's physical and physical development with respect to peers and the health risk arising from the results of each year's measurements for the Sport Educational Chart (SEC) that are performed by all Slovenian primary and secondary schools more than 30 years.
The purpose of the project is to upgrade this application with the module for predicting physical fitness of the individual, school, local community, region and state level, and the most common health risks in the adult age arising from this. The module will be intended for different user groups of Moj SLOfit.
For parents, adolescents, teachers and doctors, the module will allow for the prediction of the physical fitness of an individual child at an early adult period (18 years) on the basis of multi-year school students SEC data, as well as an assessment of his health risk in the adult age arising from this. In addition, it will also allow simulation of the expected physical fitness of the individual and the health risk when the introduction of selected interventions for improving fitness (e.g. additional hours of physical education, joint teaching of PE teachers and class teachers, active commuting to the school). The visualization of the forecasts will be simple, but designed to illustrate the predicted health risk of an individual based on the current physical and motor development, as well as a possible alternative to physical activity intervention.
Teachers, as a special user group, will allow the module to have the same functionality, but at the level of a particular class and school. This will provide teachers an additional scientific-based tool for preparing professional bases for decision making by school authorities and the local community.
The module will allow the national administrator previously described functionalities, but at the levels of local communities, regions and the state. This will create a tool that will enable policy makers at these levels to predict the trends of the physical fitness of schoolchildren, the expected effects of physical activity interventions on it and related health risks. This will contribute to scientifically sound political decisions and, consequently, rationalize public funds for health.
In order to prepare the user module, we will perform the following tasks within the project:
a) Defining the method of incorporating maturity in prediction of physical fitness based on the analysis of different approaches;
b) Defining physical activity interventions and evaluating their effects that will be used in prediction of physical fitness based on an overview of the findings of other studies and the analysis of the effects of selected interventions for improving physical fitness in Slovenia;
c) Identifying health risks arising from physical fitness in childhood based on literature overview of the results of causal studies;
d) Developing visualization of the forecasting based on the analysis of the presentation of similar data.
Significance for science
Creating an online prediction that would enable enriched feedback to teachers and doctors, not only about the past trend of somatic and physical development of an individual child, but also the prediction of a trend with a health risk in the future will provide exceptional opportunities for improving professional practice in schools through clear visualization of data and local health institutions. Parents, teachers and doctors will get an even greater insight into the possible health risks of individual children and will be able to respond to these challenges by introducing intervention programs that will be able to verify the effectiveness of the individual within the application. At the same time, schools, local communities, regions and the state will be given a tool for predicting the physical fitness development of children in a particular area on the basis of past trends, as well as the possible effects of interventions on selected populations of children and adolescents. This information will enable much more effective interventions at the level of schools, municipalities and regions.
At the scientific level, the project will develop a model for predicting health risks in adulthood based on the past physical fitness development of the child, incorporating also his/her biological maturity. This model will be developed on the basis of rich data on our population; therefore, assessments will allow more precise classification of the health risks of Slovenian children associated with a low level of physical fitness. An analysis of the effects of fitness-enhancing interventions, which will also consider some environmental factors (e.g. socio-economic status of the environment, rural environment and other selected data at the level of municipalities), will allow for more detailed scientific analyses of children's health risks and determining the causal dependence of various health and environmental factors that affect the physical and motor development of children.
Significance for the country
Project is not directly linked to economy; however, project results can have important indirect effects on economy. Individual report about physical fitness and prediction of individual physical fitness can be very important for employers regards to work capacity and productivity of individual worker and for insurance companies for assessment of health risks of individuals. Predictions at school level could serve as basis for the shaping of public health policies on local level. If these policies are going to lead to successful implementation of interventions which are going to raise the level of health among youth, this could lead to considerably lower health risks in adulthood, less absence from work, higher productivity, higher satisfaction of the employees and consequential higher quality of work and higher profits.
Most important scientific results
Annual report
2019,
2020
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Annual report
2019,
2020
