Does sports club participation contribute to physical activity among children and adolescents? : A comparison across six European countries

Aims: Insufficient physical activity (PA) is one of the largest public health challenges of our time and requires a multisectoral public-health response. PA recommendations state that all children and adolescents should accumulate at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) daily and carry out vigorous PA (VPA) three times weekly. While participation in sports club activities is known to enhance the probability of reaching the recommended overall PA level, less is known about the contribution of sports club participation to VPA and few cross-national comparisons have been carried out. The purpose of this paper is to study whether participation in sports club activities is associat…