Background
Physical activity is known to affect health outcomes throughout one’s life [
1,
2]. The optimal level of physical activity can improve health status and reduce the incidence of chronic diseases (e.g. cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and depression) [
2,
3]. The World Health Organization recommends that adults should perform aerobic physical activity for at least 150 min at moderate intensity or 75 min at vigorous intensity throughout the week, whereas children and youths should accumulate at least 60 min of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity daily [
3]. In children and youths, the nine common indicators related to physical activity have been identified by the global matrix of grades. The indicators include the following five behaviors: 1) overall physical activity, 2) organized sport participation, 3) active play, 4) active transportation, and 5) sedentary behavior; and the following four key influences: 1) family and peers, 2) school, 3) community and built environment, and 4) government strategies and investments [
4]. Literature showed that active play, sedentary behavior, and time with family and peers have been frequently studied. Physical activity has been markedly achieved through active play, active play was reported to increase physical activity and prevent childhood obesity [
5,
6]. Family and peers provide the social support for promoting physical activity, it includes situations and conditions in which parents/peers facilitate physical activity for their children/friends [
7]. Family and peers have a strong impact on physical activity during childhood. There is evidence showing that parenting practices are associated with how children prefer to play [
7,
8], peer relationships enhance an engagement in team sports and other physical and leisure activities as well [
9,
10]. Sedentary behavior has been classified as behavior that falls under the screen-time guidelines [
11]. In contrast to indicators potentiating physical activity (i.e. active play and time with family and peers), sedentary behavior is a global health risk leading to an increased rate of premature death, especially from non-communicable diseases [
11]. Although active play, time with family and peers, and sedentary behavior have significantly affected physical activity in children and youths, the association among these indicators are still elusive. Whether they interact with each other should be clarified.
Besides health improvement and disease prevention, physical activity among young people is important for growth and development [
11,
12]. Regarding cognitive function, brain function and academic achievement have been reported to be associated with physical activity [
13‐
15]. The association between physical activity, healthiness, and the intelligence quotients of 135 high school students in Jeddah in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was reported, and the findings indicated that the intelligence quotient was positively associated with physical activity and health status [
16]. In addition, there is evidence that demonstrates a positive link between the emotional quotient and physical activity in 599 Taiwanese college students [
17]. Higher emotional quotient was also associated with longer duration of exercise (weekly hours) in 64 participants with a mean aged of 19.88 years [
18]. Taken together, these cross-sectional studies revealed that an increase in physical activity was associated with both higher intelligence quotient and emotional quotient in childhood.
Critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity have been classified as the most prominent twenty-first century competencies identified on the basis of making a measurable contribution to educational accomplishments, relationships, employment, and health and well-being outcomes [
19]. Creativity has been defined as the ability to produce novel and appropriate work.
Novel work means original or unexpected, while
appropriate work implies useful or adaptive [
20,
21]. Creativity is important for social development because that lead to driving innovation and responding to unforeseen problems [
19]. Cognitive abilities attributed to prefrontal cortex function are required for creativity. In humans, the prefrontal cortex does not completely mature until the early 20s [
20,
21]. Childhood, thus, is a valuable time for development of creative skills. Information showing how to promote creativity development according to cognitive milestones is required. The objectives of the present study therefore aimed at exploring the correlation between physical activity and creativity in children and youths. Indicators of physical activity including active play, time with family and peers, sedentary behavior, and their relevant associations were also areas of focus in this study.
Discussion
Physical activity indicators reported in the present study partly conduced a grading of the physical activity indicators showed in Thailand’2016 Report Card [
11]. It was found that children and youths had an active play grade of “F”, indicating that only 0–20% of them met the defined benchmark. At the same time, sedentary behavior of children and youths received a grade of “D–”, meaning that 21–25% of them met the optimal level. A better grade was given to the time spent with family and peers, in which 66–75% of children and youth met the guideline, resulting in a grade of “B” [
11]. Taken together, Thai children and youths lowly participated in physical activity and active play, their sedentary behaviors are high. These results also reflect an increasing in physical inactivity and sedentary behavior among children and youths [
11,
25]. Since physical inactivity and sedentary behavior have contributed to the global burden of various morbidities and premature mortality [
26]. This incident in children and youths thus should be strongly concerned. In the present study, active play was found to be associated with time spent with family and peers in all age groups. It supports the idea that the family and peers is an important factor for enhancing physical activity in children and youths [
7‐
10]. A strategy for increasing active play and time spent with family and peers combined with a lessening in sedentary behavior may fight against the problems of an increasing physical inactivity and sedentary behavior and support health promotion in children and youths.
The mean and range of the TCT-DP score of children and youths in the present study were in line with the previous studies [
27‐
30], it also indicated that there was a limited number of students with high-creativity abilities. An increasing in the TCT-DP according to age group can be explained by the fact that the brain region involved in generating creative ideas does not mature until humans pass their 20th birthday [
20,
21]. Differences in creative thought were discovered between different age groups, using functional magnetic resonance imaging while participants carried out divergent thinking tasks [
31]. It was demonstrated that default and executive networks were more functionally coupled for creative process in older than younger adults [
31]. Although age has been found to affect creativity, there is a creativity difference among age-matched individuals [
32]. This fact supports the idea that a high creativity ability may associate with other factors affecting cognitive function. The present study thus aimed at exploring the correlation between physical activity indicators and creativity in children and youths. Creativity was determined through using TCT-DP which has been considered a reliable test [
23]. However, Jankowska et al. [
30]. reported that TCT-DP might also require a specific profile of gaze distribution or self-regulation strategies because the more time participants spent looking at the many pieces in the test sheet, the higher their scores were. The dwell time for a single fragment, in contrast, was negatively related to the TCT-DP score [
30].
As mentioned previously, the optimal level of physical activity has been reported to improve cognitive function [
1‐
3]. In childhood, physical activity is associated with the intelligence and emotional quotients [
16‐
18]. Latorre Román et al. in 2017 [
33], reported the association between physical fitness and creativity in elementary school children (
n = 308, age from 8 to 12 years). The participants completed a fitness test battery and the Prueba de Imaginación Creativa para Niños (PIC-N; Creative Imagination Test for Children). It was observed that physical fitness was positively correlated with creativity, and boys had better physical fitness and higher creativity skill [
33]. In the present study, the difference in creativity were not observed between genders. The association between creativity and physical activity indicators was specifically monitored according to age groups divided by the age structure and education in Thailand. The result thus reflects that association in each age group in which their cognitive and physical functions are different. In addition, this study pointed to the physical activity indicators, including active play, time with family and peers, and sedentary behavior which has been frequently reported to affect physical activity and physical fitness in children and youth [
5‐
10]. The results showed that creativity was associated with active play in adolescents; however, the association was not found in participants aged 6–14 years. All results of physical activity indicators were collected by using a self-report instrument, recall ability has been reported as a weakness of the self-report instrument [
11]. Recalling the types and amount of time spent in physical activity might be difficult for children, especially in the youngest age group [
11]. Since active play has been reported as the directly indicator of physical activity in children and youths [
5,
6]. The present study thus supports the finding that physical activity is essential for cognitive development in children and youths [
13‐
15]. Increased physical activity, especially in active play may be a strategy for facilitating creativity. Nevertheless, the present results also implied that there are many factors related to creativity. To enhance creativity ability in this generation, more information is needed to clarify other factors associated with creativity.
Limitations and future plan
Health status reported in the present study was observed only through health report obtained from a class teacher, but more demographic and health condition information should be considered for future studies as well. As physical activity is important for cognitive function and related with intelligence quotient, emotional quotient, and creativity skills in childhood. Future longitudinal study thus plan to investigate the difference of these variables in adolescents with low and high physical activity. An objective measurement of behaviors and a screening tool for assessing the time spent with family and peers should be consider included.
Acknowledgements
The data of physical activity in the present study were obtained from the Physical Activity Research Centre (PARC). The PARC committee was officially set up and authorized by the Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth). This research was also partially supported by the new strategic research (P2P) project, Walailak University. The authors would like to thank Prof. Dr. Narattaphol Charoenphandhu, M.D., Ph.D., Assoc. Prof. Apichai Wattanapisit, M.D., Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jitbanjong Tangpong, Ph.D., and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Manas Kotepui, Ph.D. for their kind support. We are also grateful to Mr. David C. Chang for English manuscript editing.
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