Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Physical literacy is the ability, knowledge and motivation to be active for life. Books and readings about physical literacy suggest that children who are more physically literate are more active and healthier. So far, there is very little research about this. The goal of this abstract is to describe the relationships between physical literacy, physical activity, motor skills and health in 218 school-age boys and girls. These children came to our lab to complete a number of tests. To measure physical literacy, children did a questionnaire, called the PLAYself and performed 18 different movement skills (like running, skipping, throwing and kicking, called the PLAYfun. The children's parents completed a questionnaire about their thoughts about their child's level of physical literacy, called the PLAYparent. We measured physical activity with a special activity monitor that children wore around their waist for a week. This monitor recorded how many minutes of physical activity children did every day. Children performed a second movement skill test called the BOT-2 that is used regularly in research studies. Health was measured with a treadmill running test, a sprint bike test and a special scale that measured body fat percentage. We found that all the measures of physical literacy were related to physical activity participation, the BOT-2 movement skill test, the treadmill test, and the sprint bike test. The body fat percentage was only related to the PLAYfun measurement. The relationships between physical literacy, physical activity, movement skills and health were the strongest with the PLAYfun measure. PLAYparent and PLAYself are still important because they tell us about a child's confidence, motivation and knowledge to be active, not just how well they move. This new research is really exciting and will help future researchers who study physical literacy.