PHYSICAL ACTIVITY PATTERNS OF ANGLO- AND MEXICAN- AMERICAN YOUTH: SAN DIEGO SCAN 894

The purpose of this study was to examine gender and ethnic differences in physical activity in a bi-ethnic cohort of 10 and 11 year-old children. The 228 youth were from low-to-middle socioeconomic status families recruited to participate in the longitudinal San Diego SCAN project (Studies of Children's Activity and Nutrition). Trained assessors administered the 7-day physical activity recall (PAR) to 103 Anglo-American (55 boys, 48 girls) and 125 Mexican-American children (59 boys; 66 girls) on two occasions, approximately six months apart. Two-way ANOVAS (gender x ethnicity) revealed Mexican-American children expended less energy than Anglo children on both week days (p<0.0002) and weekends (p<0.02), had fewer hours weekly of moderate (p<0.02) and hard (p<0.0001) physical activities, and engaged continuously in fewer activities for 15 minutes or more (p<0.006). Boys expended relatively more energy than girls on both week days (p<0.0005) and weekends (p<0.0002) and reported more weekly hours of moderate (p<0.03) and very hard physical activity (p<0.0001). Overall, Mexican American boys were 93.6% as active as Anglo boys, while Anglo girls and Mexican American girls were 93.4%, and 89.6% as active as Anglo boys, respectively. Based on these and other findings, female and Mexican-American youth should be given high priority for physical activity interventions.