The importance of physical exercise

Recognizing the importance of physical exercise combined with a healthy food in a healthy growing, the Comenius team applied a questionnaire to their students. Each country applied the same questionnaire, analysed the results and this page is about their conclusions.

Portuguese team

Our study was based on 60 students from 3rd Cycle, 8th and 9th graders (8th C 8th D and 9th A) who answered the questionnaire, aged between 13 and 15 years old.

From the data presented, we can infer that most students walk every day (59 students) and that the majority of these do it for more than thirty minutes per day. Though the majority walks more than 30 minutes, many others walk for 10 to 20 minutes. This is not enough, if we want to take care of our health, but it surely is better than not walking at all.

This is one of the best habits we can develop, because it brings us a lot of benefits, such as:

it reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke;
it reduces the levels of cholesterol and diabetes;
it keeps your weight controlled;
it tones your legs;
but above all it gives you energy and can make you a happier person!

We also realized that most students have P.E. lessons at school once a week (50+50 minutes) and only a short number (13) of students have it twice a week because they have extracurricular physical activity in the sports club.

Basketball is the most played sport, closely followed by football (futsal), volleyball and handball. Korfball and softball are not popular sports in our school.

Besides these sports, some students also practise athletics, swimming, synchronized swimming, basketball and many other sports outside school.

Most students practise these sports once a week, twice a week or three times a week, which shows us that sports are an important part of students’ daily life.

Above all, sports can bring a lot of benefits:

they encourage the development of social skills,
they can help children to learn how to relate to others ,
and eventually they also ensure that these children or teens become gradually independent and achieve a higher self-esteem!

Spanish team

According to the results of the questionnaire “Be active” we can say that most of the students of INS Europa walk between 20 and 30 minutes per day. They walk to school because it is near their houses. We can also see that boys walk a longer distance than girls.

They have PE lessons twice a week and the school offers football, basketball, pichi and volleyball. The boys prefer football whereas basketball seems to be the favourite sport amongst the girls. The girls have recognized that they also enjoy playing volleyball and pichi.

The graph shows that boys and girls do extracurricular activities, between two or three times a week. Rugby is the most popular sport for boys and football is the second most popular. Girls however say that they prefer twirling and basketball. There are important sports clubs in our neighbourhood, Bellvitge. One of them is Twirling Club L’Hospitalet, another one is Hospitalet Rugby Club and Bellvitge and Gornal football clubs. Some of our students are members of these clubs and they have won local championships.

In spite of knowing that they practise sport at school twice a week and they do extracurricular activities, they have recognized that if they want to get fit, they should reduce the time they spend watching TV, playing video games, chatting with friends on Facebook and playing video games.

After applying the questionnaire and the interpretation of the results we realized that most of the Romanian students walk every day; only 2 students do not walk. Most of them do it more than thirty minutes a day or between 20 to 30 minutes. Few students walk less than 20 minutes and only 2 students walk until 10 minutes a day.

In what concerrn the practice of Physical Education at school, it can be concluded that most of them do some sports only in school during the time devoted to this subject . Outside school practising sports is not a priority for our students; even those who practise sports outside school do this more often in the company of friends, normally up to twice a week.

Correlating this questionnaire with the first one applied at the beginning of the project that showed a significant proportion of students who consumed fast food products. This way we realized about the importance, for young people, to be aware of the effects of this type of food in the absence of sport. Therefore it is necessary to continue the campaign "A day without fast food" conducted by this Comenius Project. It is important that this campaign will be complemented by actions in order to attract young people to sports.

Italian team

Turkish team

In our school (ISISS Domenico Sartor), we realized that our students have physical exercise habits: 88% of students walk every day for 20 minutes; in fact the graphics shows that many of them go to school on foot or by bike. Most of them use public transport and only few of them (12%) do not walk normally.Let's see more details: Starting with the number of students engaged in physical activity (82%), those who do it after school practise a wide variety of sports (soccer, working in the countryside, while motocross, basketball, volleyball and family fights are equally practised) on average twice a week. Given the fact that the most of students have a farm and in the afternoon they work with their parents, they perform intense physical activity; the remaining 18% do not practise sport. These statistical data collected in our school are positive. .

Analyzing the questionnaires, we realized that most of the Turkish students are used to walk every day and the majority of them do it more than thirty minutes a day. Few students walk less than 20 minutes and only 6 students walk until 10 minutes a day.

We also realized that most students have P.E. lessons at school once a week although a very significant number of them have PE lessons twice a week.

The students practise a great variety of sports at school but their favourite ones are volleyball, basketball, badminton, football and table tennis.

Outside school more or less half of the students practise the same kind of sports especially basketball, football, volleyball and table tennis.

Most students practise these sports once a week, twice a week or three times a week, which shows us that sports are an important part of students’ daily life.

Romanian team

Polish team

Based on the survey of 60 students from our school can be concluded that about 67% (40 students) go out for a walking, and 14 students spend more than 30 minutes on this activity.

All students of our school have Physical Education classes twice a week (3 lesson hours).

Most of them, 50% (30 students) play football, basketball and volleyball during Physical Education classes.

Most of them, about 64% (38 students) enjoy sports outside of school, of which 23 students - football two or three times per week.