The Role of Physical Activity, Research Paper Example

What is the role of physical activity in the prevention of childhood obesity?

This proposal addresses the role of physical activity as an intervention to reduce childhood obesity: Thus, physical activity (the lack of it) is the cause construct; obesity is the effect construct.  The hypothesis is: Obesity is associated with a sedentary lifestyle in children

Figure 1: Constructs

The concept of physical activity operationalized in two different ways: 1) duration: total time spent exercising (minutes per day). 2) Intensity: Average and maximum heart rate achieved during exercise (measured with a monitor). The construct of obesity will be operationalized as an individual’s body mass index (BMI) level.  That is, individuals with a BMI greater than or equal to the 95^th percentile. The relationship between physical activity and obesity is theoretically established, the main challenge lies in how to ensure the internal and external validity of the study.

The independent variable in this proposal is physical activity; the dependent variable is obesity. The study proposes a true experimental design of pretest and posttest method to test how previously sedentary children respond to regular exercise sessions over a period of time. The target population will be students going to public schools in Western Oklahoma, inclusive criteria, ages between 9-11 years and BMI> 95^th percentile from whom sample will be drawn. There will be two groups of students randomized from a sub-population to participate in the experiment: One will be the intervention group, the other will be the other will be the control group. The intervention group will exercise five days a week at school, and have weekly visit with their primary care provider (PCP) in order to measure results and gauge overall progress over a six-month period. The control group will continue their normal routine throughout the six months time period. In order to prevent groups from communication with each other regarding the experiment they will be selected from different grades.

The issue of causality is difficult to isolate in any study, the main mitigating factor in this study design is the randomization of the study participants to groups via computer. Additional factors which could threaten internal validity may be diet: The control group may be diet and engage in physical exercise. Participants will write down their daily diet and exercise habits to control for this bias.

The main source of data in this study will be survey, observational and clinical. The survey data will be an initial survey given to children and their parents regarding exercise and dietary history. The observation data will be the amount of exercise performed on a daily basis. The clinical data will be the changes in body weight taken and other vital signs taken by the PCP on a weekly basis. Finally, the sample will be students from public school aged 9-11, BMI> 95^th percentile. The sample will be drawn from separate grades in the same school. The will be generalized to obese students aged 9-11 in this area.