Physical/sport activity of 2nd triad students during distance learning at the time of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic (COVID-19)

Experts have started to notice a global decline of physical activity, which only increased with the emergence of the global SARS-CoV-2 epidemic (COVID-19). The data is concerning, since physical/sport activity is crucial for the harmonious development of human beings. It has a positive impact on health (psychical and physical), as well as on general quality of life (impact on work performance, relaxation, socialisation, development of a positive self-image etc.). In the theoretical part of the master’s thesis, we therefore focused on the importance of physical/sport activity for children and adolescents and stressed out the negative impacts of insufficient physical activity. We also presented guidelines for physical/sport activity during reinforced measures due to SARS-CoV-2. We analysed physical/sport activity during reinforced measures across the world and in Slovenia. We described the recommendations for remote sport lessons and stressed out the state in Slovenia. The goal of the empirical part of the master’s thesis was to identify the state of physical/sport activity of students in the second triad of during distance learning in times of the virus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) global epidemic. We obtained the data with an online questionnaire. The sample of subjects included 678 male and female students from 30 Slovenian primary schools, who attended the 4th, 5th and 6th grade in the school year 2020/21. The World Health Organization (WHO, 2020b) recommends for children and adolescents, aged 5 to 17 years, at least 60 minutes of intensive physical/sport activity daily. We found that less than half of the questioned (45.4%) met those recommendations. There were statistically significant differences in physical/sport activity between girls and boys, since boys were more often physically active than girls. However, there were no statistically significant differences between the questioned, who visited urban or rural schools. Students were most frequently going for walks, went cycling or were playing at the backyard. They assessed that physical/sport activity was among their three most popular spare time activities during the period of distance learning. It turned out that the majority of the questioned were more motivated for physical/sport activity in times, when they were going to school. Among the reasons, they stated the quality of exercises and content, presence of the teacher or personal contact with him/her and stressed out the importance of peers for work motivation. In addition, only 19.8% of the questioned were very physically active during sport lessons at a distance. The majority of parents (88.4%) encouraged their children for physical/sport activity. As many as 55.8% of students assessed that teachers have sometimes or rarely encouraged physical/sport activity also in other lessons. The conducted research showed that in the Slovenian sample the majority of the questioned have also not met the recommendations of the World Health Organization for physical/sport activity during distance learning