The QAHK Report Card is part of a wider international campaign by the Active Healthy Kids Global Alliance (AHKGA), which compares 49 countries from six continents to assess global trends in childhood physical activity in developed and developing nations.

Qatar’s participation in AHKGA is set to help further the goals set out in the Qatar National Health Strategy 2018-2022, which encourages healthy living and well-being for sustainable development.

The report has revealed that modern lifestyles – increases in screen time, the growing urbanization of communities and the rise in automation of previously manual tasks – are contributing to a pervasive public health problem that must be recognized as a global priority. The results in Qatar show that 15% of children reported being physically active for a total of 60 minutes or more on five days or more per week.

Commenting on the report, Mr. Abdulla Saeed Al Mohannadi, Acting Director of Exercise is Medicine Department™ at Aspetar, said:

“The QAHK Report Card has been developed to assess physical activity and health related behaviours among children and youth in the State of Qatar.  It could provide an opportunity for surveillance to understand physical activity trends over time. Therefore, it will central in developing policies and strategies to promote children’s active healthy living.”

The Public Health Consultant at Aspetar and Team Leader of the Qatari Active Healthy Kids report card, Dr. Izzeldin Ibrahim, said:

“Children’s physical inactivity is a growing epidemic and active healthy kids are the cornerstone for building healthy productive nations. The QAHK Report Card helps us to move from theory to practice and I look forward to seeing positive results soon.”

Based on this report, Qatari researchers are calling for awareness, advocacy, and the creation of supportive physical and social environments which collectively can help shift the norm and make physical activity a part of every child’s life. Priorities include: researches on children physical activity and health; stakeholder involvement; and supportive safe environment.

The report developed by AHKGA for Qatar can be accessed from the following link: https://www.activehealthykids.org/qatar/.