The Ministry of Education of China has carried out spot check and review of the test data of \"National Standards for Students' Physical Health\" for many years, however, the effect of the investigation and the changes of students' physical health are unclear.
PURPOSE: To analyze the changing characteristics of students' physical health from 2016 to 2018.
METHODS: We used 2016-2018 National Students Physical Health Sample Survey data for students from grade one in primary school to senior student(N= 221,053; 220330; 227,160). National norm reference standard was adopted to evaluate students' test scores of various items in body shape, function, constitution, and the total score was calculated after the scores of all the items were weighted. According to the total score, students were evaluated by four grades(excellent, good, pass and fail), BMI was used for obesity evaluation, which was divided into obesity, overweight, normal and low weight.
RESULTS: (1)From 2016 to 2018, the overall failure rate decreased from 12.0% to 11.3%, ,the favorable rate increased from 21.9% to 24.1%, and the excellent rate rose from 4.6% to 6.2% year by year.(2)The average proportion of primary students who reached the standard within three years was 93.0%,middle school students was 88.0%, high school students was 89.1% and college students was 73.7%.(3)The average proportion of overweight and obese students in China in the past three years is 21.6%, among which the average proportion of overweight was 13% and the obese was 8.6%.As a result, more than one fifth of the students’ BMI were overweight or obese. In addition, from 2016 to 2018, the proportion of students who are obese was 7.9%, 8.9% and 9.0%, and the proportion of students who are overweight was 12.3%, 13.4% and 13.4%, respectively. The proportion of students who are overweight and obese increased year by year.
CONCLUSIONS: In the past three years, students' physical health has been gradually improved. The overall level of students' physical health decreased with the increase of learning period. The proportion of overweight and obesity in Chinese students is on the rise year by year.Acknowledgment: This study was supported by special project and laboratory of Ministry of Education in BSU.