# Sport and Physical Activity Participation by Weight Groups in School-Aged Hungarian Children
## 4 Discussion
A recent study found that after the introduction of daily physical education in Hungarian schools, leisure time spent in sports and exercise increased significantly, regardless of gender and age group [26]. Another explanation might be that in the HBSC data collection, children fill in the questionnaires in an online form, and they often underestimate their own physical activity. According to a previous study using objectively measured PA in 9-12-year-old children living in Budapest, more than 90% of them achieved the 60 min recommendation on weekdays [27]. We have found that 63% of children participate in a club sport or organized sport, which is higher than in countries with similar economic and social environments. In Hungary, participation in a club sport means a higher level of sport activity with highly educated coaches and better facilities. Organized sport might be any kind of sport or leisure time activity that generally takes place at schools and is led by a physical education teacher or a coach who is not necessarily a member of any sport federations. In an earlier report, the participation in organized sport was 40% lower [28], but in the HBSC study, it was published that two-thirds of the children reported vigorous physical activity twice a week that was related to organized sport participation [2]. Similar results were found in Slovakia with 41% overall participation and 54% overall participation in Poland [24,25]. Despite the health benefits of active traveling, active travel to school has declined or stabilized at a relatively low level. European active travel to school data were relatively higher than in USA or Australia [29]. In our study, using active travel was reported by 80% of the participants, which is higher than previously reported in Slovakia (49%) or Poland (45%). Interestingly, active traveling declined more than 10% in Poland and Slovakia compared to an earlier HBSC publication where the overall rate of active traveling in four European countries (Poland, Slovakia, Czechia, and Germany) was 59% [30]. The question that was used in our study was the same as that used in those reports [24,25]. Parent-child joint physical activity in our study was 70% in general, which is higher than in the Slovak report (46%) or in Poland where the average was 40%. The parental support in our study, which meant the facilitation of physical activity and sport opportunities, was 83% in general, which was higher than expected. We did not find comparable results from Hungary, Poland, or Slovakia. Our findings indicate that the higher education of parents is beneficial, which concurs with results from high-income or Western countries [3,16]. There is a lack of information about lower-educated parental health behaviours and parental involvement or support in youth sports. Gender differences in physical activity are often reported in this field. A cross-sectional study in Serbia involving 301 children reported that more boys than girls played sports and that sport choice depended on gender. Boys preferred team sports, while girls were oriented more towards individual sports. The most popular sports for boys were football (28.3%), basketball (24.4%), volleyball (16.1%), and water polo (16.1%). The girls preferred to participate in gymnastics (37.8%), volleyball (21.8%), swimming (19.3%), and water polo (17.6%) [31]. [PERSON] et al. investigated the organized sport participation in Danish primary school children with parental help. According to their results, football was the most popular (20.7%), then handball (11.2%), gymnastics (8.3%), basketball (1.1%), and volleyball (0.8%). They found that children participating in football were less sedentary, performed more MVPA, and were more likely to achieve the recommended level of physical activity than children not participating in organized sport [32]. Our findings that football is the most popular type of activity in clubs and in organized sport concur with previous studies.