Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

The 2016 report card was the first comprehensive evaluation of how Zimbabwean children and youth are performing on 10 key indicators of physical activity. It was developed using the best available research evidence and written following an internationally recognized and standard protocol to enable inter-country comparison. Each indicator was awarded a grade based on the proportion of children meeting specified benchmarks. The individual grades ranged from A (majority of children meeting benchmark criteria) to F (only a few children meeting the criteria). My poster will present the grades awarded for Zimbabwean children and will be compared to grades from 38 other countries including Canada, who all used the same standard and similar indicators to grade children and youth in their respective countries. The summary of my poster presentation shows that although the majority of children in Zimbabwe used active transport, played organized sports and engaged in acceptable levels of physical activity, most of them did not meet the recommended hours of unstructured/unorganized play per day. The results also revealed a lack of strong research evidence therefore we recommended the need for studies which are designed better and with samples that are more representative of the whole population. Zimbabwe also needs to prioritize policies and investments that promote greater and safe participation in physical activity among children and youth.