Percentages of physically active children among 13-year-olds

Data sources
HBSC 2009/2010 survey (2) and 2005/2006 survey (3).

Description of data
In the HBSC 2005/2006 and 2009/2010 surveys, young people were asked to report the number of days during the previous week that they were physically active for a total of at least 60 minutes per day. The question was preceded by an explanatory text that defined MVPA as “any activity that increases your heart rate and makes you get out of breath some of the time” (1) and gave examples of such activities.

Method of calculating the indicator
100 × (NChild/TChild), where NChild is the number of children of a given age meeting the MVPA guidelines and TChild is the total number of children of a given age at school.
The response categories were: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 days. The percentage of children having 7 days of MVPA per week was calculated.

Geographical coverage
The 2009/2010 survey was conducted in 39 countries or areas, including the following 36 countries or areas in the WHO European Region: Austria, Belgium (Flanders and Wallonia), , Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, the United Kingdom (England, Scotland and Wales) and Ukraine.

Period of coverage
2005/2006 and 2009/2010.

Frequency of update
HBSC surveys are carried out at four-year intervals.

Data quality
The data are collected in all participating countries and regions through school-based surveys, using the international research protocol.
For more information on meta-data and calculation of this indicator refer to the methodology.