Opinions of Primary School Students on Taking Part in Sport Activities in Selected Regions of Slovakia

IntroductionSport activities of children and young people performed at school and as extracurricular activities have changed significantly over the last ten or twenty years. Many children are unconcerned about physical education, sport activities and sport. Passive forms of spare time activities include watching TV and playing computer games, surfing the web or chatting on a mobile phone predominate. Favourite activities include meeting in peer groups and parties unfortunately; they do not always do appropriate activities, namely sports (Miklankova et al., 2009). There is strong evidence to demonstrate the physical and psychological benefits of sport activities. Despite the fact that people are aware of these positive benefits, the number of obese people, people with body posture problems and low motion literacy, the less psychologically resilient are all on the increase. At the same time, there are still more and more people who demand financial and material security and are concerned with their appearance. Numerous foreign and national studies prove that low or even sub-standard sport activities, altogether with obesity, are increasing. E.g. Ruston et al. (2004) in their research carried out at the turn of millennia noticed an alarming increase in obesity in Great Britain. According to their findings, as much as two thirds of adult men and more than a half of adult women are overweight and even obese. According to the data from the annual report of the Public Health Authority in Slovak Republic from 2013 (http://www.uvzsr.sk/docs/vs/vyrocna_sprava_2013.pdf), 13 - 15% of Slovak children aged from 11 to 15 years are obese and overweight. 20% of people are overweight in the age group from 18 to 24 years and 41.74% of people are obese in the age group from 55 to 64 years. 25.6 % suffer from obesity in the age group ranging from 18 to 64 years, and 36.2 % are overweight. As stated by Nadera et.al. (2008) children at the age of 9 spend more than three hours on sport activities during the working week and weekend and their activity decreases with advancing age. At the age of 15 they participate only 49 minutes per day during the week and even less during the weekend - only 35 minutes per day. According to WHO (World Health Organization, 2010), a physical inactivity is the fourth greatest mortality factor in the world. WHO further mentions that the increase of lifestyle diseases shows a direct dependence of lifestyle on the lack of movement in most European countries. The study of Hagstromer et al. (2010) compares the level of sport activities in terms of intensity in Sweden (n=1172) and the US (n=2925) and states that their research group analysed greatly prefer sedentary and low intensity activities. The results of the international experimental study HBSC (The Health Behaviour in School) by Currie et al. (2012) show, that a large proportion of schoolchildren are not sufficiently active as far as sport activities are concerned. As stated by the above mentioned study, almost 50% of girls intensively exercise less than five times a week and their activity even decreases with advancing age. Results of the survey STEM/MARK and VZP (T/N: the major health insurance company in the Czech Republic) in 2013 (n=2058) show that 55% of men's and 60% of women's waistline reaches hazardous levels and a significant increase was recorded between 2012 and 2013 (www.slideshare.net). The research results of Perackova (2008) and Antala et al. (2012) show that PE lessons at schools are the only opportunity for many children to take part in sport activities - and this is considered alarming. Bendikova (2014) discovered in a group of high-school students that only 20% of girls take part in sport activities on regular basis, either recreationally or competitively. These facts have effect on the mild, but gradual decrease of physical fitness in the majority of the population. Similar figures on motion efficiency amongst schoolchildren are reported in the Raczek, Mynarski and Ljach's comparative study (2002). …