Active Transportation to School. Utopia or a Strategy for a Healthy Life in Adolescence

Nuno Loureiro, Adilson Marques, Vânia Loureiro and Margarida Gaspar de Matos
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Nuno Loureiro: Projeto Aventura Social, Faculdade de Motricidade Humana, Universidade de Lisboa, Estrada da Costa, 1499-002 Cruz Quebrada, Portugal
Adilson Marques: Faculdade de Medicina/ISAMB Centro de Investigação Apoiado Pela Universidade de Lisboa, 1649-028 Lisboa, Portugal
Vânia Loureiro: Projeto Aventura Social, Faculdade de Motricidade Humana, Universidade de Lisboa, Estrada da Costa, 1499-002 Cruz Quebrada, Portugal
Margarida Gaspar de Matos: Projeto Aventura Social, Faculdade de Motricidade Humana, Universidade de Lisboa, Estrada da Costa, 1499-002 Cruz Quebrada, Portugal

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 9, 1-9

Abstract: The way adolescents travel to school can be an important contribution to achieving their daily physical activity recommendations. The main objective of this research is to know which variables are associated with the mode of transportation used to and from school by Portuguese adolescents. The 2018 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children questionnaire was applied to 5695 adolescents with an average age of 15.5 (SD ± 1.8), 53.9% of whom were female. The associations were studied by applying ? 2 tests and multivariate logistic regression models. In this study, 36.5% of the participants reported walking or cycling to school. Active transportation to school is associated with age (OR = 1.3; p < 0.05), sufficient physical activity (OR = 1.2; p < 0.05), adequate number of hours of sleep (OR = 1.2; p < 0.05), perception of happiness (OR = 1.2; p < 0.05) and living near the school (OR = 2.4; p < 0.05). The results revealed that adolescents’ choice to travel to/from school using an active mode of transportation increased with age, physical activity, hours of sleep, perception of happiness, and living near the school.

Keywords: adolescent; walking; health behaviors; health promotion; physical activity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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