Assessing Health Enhancing, Physical Activity Level and Attitude of Students in St. Monica’s College of Education using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ)

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume IV, Issue V, May 2020 | ISSN 2454–6186

Assessing Health Enhancing, Physical Activity Level and Attitude of Students in St. Monica’s College of Education using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ)

Abena Adasa Nkrumah^1*, Stephen Addae Kyenkyehene^2
1,2Tutor, St. Monica’s College of Education, Mampong-Ashanti, Ghana
*Corresponding Author

Abstract:-The main purpose of this study was to assess physical activity level of Students in St. Monica’s College of Education using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ). Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. A sample size of 350 was selected from a population of 750 and simple random sampling technique was used to select participants for the study. Questionnaire was used for data collection. Descriptive statistics (percentages. mean and standard deviation) were used in analyzing and discussing the result. The study revealed that students of St. Monica’s college of education have a strong negative attitude (M=2.78, SD=1.43) towards participation in the physical activities. It also revealed that students have low participation in Physical Activity (78%). It is recommended that after school games and activities should be made fun and the games should not be male dominated. Student must be educated on the importance of physical activity.

Keywords: College of education, physical activities.

I. INTRODUCTION

Physical activity is any human actions formed by skeletal muscles that necessitate energy expenditure including actions commenced whiles playing, at work, doing household task, travelling, and engaging in leisure pursuits (23). This definition gives us a wider rank of events which we can do to achieve the benefits of participating in physical activity. Individuals who participate in physical activities are often happy, friendly, competitive and kind, meaning people with a life including physical activities are creative and dynamic in nature (13). In accordance with this view, physical activity creates an emotionally, physically and physiologically healthy community.
Physical sedentariness is on the increase in numerous states, it is testified to be the fourth top risk factor for worldwide mortality and causes 6% of all deaths, accumulating to the burden of non-communicable diseases distressing general health nationwide (22). Seventy percent of Ghanaian children not having adequate physical activity (16). Engaging in physical activity can help reduce the risk of colon cancer, obesity, and reproductive cancer in females, diabetes, ischemic heart and osteoporosis.

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