Scottish Health Survey - topic report: equality groups

References and Notes for Section Seven

1. Start Active, Stay Active - A report on physical activity for health from the four home countries' Chief Medical Officers. (web only). UK Department of Health, July 2011. <www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_128209>

2. Note that young people aged 16-18 are treated as adults in SHeS and complete the adult version of the physical activity questionnaire. The different methods used to measure physical activity in adults and children mean that it is not appropriate to combine the data from young people aged 16-18 and those aged 5-15 to provide estimates for the 5-18 age group.

3. Allied Dunbar National Fitness Survey. London: Health Education Authority and Sports Council, 1992.

4. Home activities:

Examples of 'heavy' gardening or DIY work classified as moderate intensity:

Digging, clearing rough ground, building in stone/bricklaying, mowing large areas with a hand mower, felling trees, chopping wood, mixing/laying concrete, moving heavy loads, refitting a kitchen or bathroom or any similar heavy manual work.

Examples of 'heavy' housework classified as moderate intensity:

Walking with heavy shopping for more than 5 minutes, moving heavy furniture, spring cleaning, scrubbing floors with a scrubbing brush, cleaning windows, or other similar heavy housework.

Examples of 'light' gardening or DIY work classified as light intensity:

Hoeing, weeding, pruning, mowing with a power mower, planting flowers/seeds, decorating, minor household repairs, car washing and polishing, car repairs and maintenance.

5. Sports and Exercise activities - Intensity:

Vigorous:

a) All occurrences of running/jogging, squash, boxing, kick boxing, skipping, trampolining.

b) Sports coded as vigorous intensity if they had made the participant breathe heavily or sweaty, but otherwise coded as moderate intensity including: cycling, aerobics, keep fit, gymnastics, dance for fitness, weight training, football, rugby, swimming, tennis, badminton.

Moderate:

a) See 'vigorous' category b).

b) All occasions of a large number of activities including: basketball, canoeing, fencing, field athletics, hockey, ice skating, lacrosse, netball, roller skating, rowing, skiing, volleyball.

c) Sports coded as moderate intensity if they had made the participant breathe heavily or sweaty, but otherwise coded as light intensity, including: exercise (press-ups, sit-ups etc), dancing.

Light:

a) See 'moderate' category c).

b) All occasions of a large number of activities including: abseiling, baseball, bowls, cricket, croquet, darts, fishing, golf, riding, rounders, sailing, shooting, snooker, snorkelling, softball, table tennis, yoga.

6. Work activities:

Vigorous:

Considers self very physically active in job and is in one of a small number of occupations defined as involving heavy work including:

fishermen/women, furnace operators, rollerman, smiths and forge workers, faceworking coal-miners, other miners, construction workers and forestry workers.

Moderate:

Considers self very physically active in job and is not in occupation groups listed above OR considers self fairly physically active in job and is one of a small number of occupations involving heavy or moderate work including:

any listed above OR fire service officers, metal plate workers, shipwrights, riveters, steel erectors, benders, fitters, galvanisers, tin platers, dip platers, plasterers, roofers, glaziers, general building workers, road surfacers, stevedores, dockers, goods porters, refuse collectors.

Light:

Considers self fairly physically active in job and is not in one of the occupation groups listed above.

7. Rizzuti, D., Orini, N., Chenxuan, Q., (2012) Lifestyle, social factors, and survival after age 75: population based study. BMJ. 345:e5568

8. http://www.esrc.ac.uk/news-and-events/press-releases/16005/differing-lifestyles-a-study-of-ethnicity-and-health.aspx

9. Fischbacher, C.M., Hunt, S. and Alexander, L. (2004) How physically active are South Asians in the United Kingdom? A literature review. Journal of Public Health. Vol. 26, No. 3 pp 250-258

10. Higgins, V., Dale, A. (2010) 'Ethnic Differences in Physical Activity and Obesity' in Ethnicity and Integration: Understanding Population Trends and Processes. Stillwell, J. and van Ham, M. (ed). Springer Netherlands.

11. Henning Brodersen, N., Steptoe, A. Boniface, D.R. and Wardle, J. (2007) Trends in physical activity and sedentary behaviour in adolescence: ethnicity and socioeconomic differences. British Journal of Sports Medicine. Vol 41: 140-144.