Is being a couch potato risky behavior?
Comments (...)Editor’s note: This is the second in a multi-part series on the 2011 Illinois Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
When parents worry about their children making bad choices, they tend to focus on things like drugs and alcohol.
But there are other choices children make that can have a negative effect in the long run.
The 2011 Illinois Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) asked 1,712 students in public high schools in Illinois outside of Chicago questions about nutrition, tobacco use, alcohol and other drug use, physical activity, injuries and sexual behavior resulting in sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy, and sexual orientation.
Here are some of the results.
Physical activity
Students are not as physically active as they once were. More than three out of four, or 76 percent, said they were not physically active for a total of at least 60 minutes per day on seven of the past seven days. Eleven percent said they had not been physically active for 60 minutes in any one day in the past seven days. In addition, almost one in four, or 24 percent, did not attend a physical eduction class every day they were in school.
How did they spend their time?
More than one in four, or 27.6 percent, said they watched three or more hours of TV on an average school day. Even more, 28.6 percent, said they played video or computer games three or more hours on an average school day.
Inactivity showed
Based on submitted height and weight statistics, almost 14 percent were officially overweight, as defined as above 85th percentile but below 95th percentile for body mass index. The percentage of girls overweight was higher than boys, at 15 percent to 13 percent. Students 18 or older had the lowest percentage, with 10.6 percent for the girls and 8.4 percent for the boys.
An additional 11 percent were officially obese, at or above the 95th percentile. Here the gender roles were reversed, with almost three times as many boys (15.5 percent) being obese as girls (6.3 percent). The difference was even higher among the older students with 13.5 percent of the boys and only 3.5 percent of the girls being obese.
When asked to identify themselves, almost 30 percent of the students said they were either slightly or very overweight. More than 37 percent of the girls 15 or younger described themselves as overweight.
In addition, almost half, or 48.6 percent, said they were trying to lose weight. Two out of every three girls aged 16-17 said they were trying to lose weight.
To lose that weight, 11.7 percent said they had gone without eating for 24 hours or more during the past 30 days. The highest percentage was among girls 15 and under, with almost one in five fasting for more than a day in the past month.
Dietary behaviors
The students’ eating habits weren’t the best, either.
Fewer than one in 10 said they had eaten fruits two or more times per day or vegetables three or more times per day during the past seven days.
And when it came to liquid calories, more than one out of four, or 25.6 percent, drank soda one or more times per day during the last seven days.
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