title: Recess Activity and General Health Status among Iranian Elementary Schools' Pupils.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Regular and daily physical activity during childhood and at school is one of the important part of requirements of normal growth, development and well-being. To achieve physical activity promotion among school child aged population recess as outside of class time efforts is scheduled and allows students to engage in physical and social activities. The purpose of the present study was to assess recess activities as well as status of physical activities among a sample of Iranian students at the primary schools.
  
  
  METHODS
  This cross-sectional study was performed in four randomly selected schools from a list of 26 elementary schools in March, 2012 in the city of Shahindej, located in North-west of Iran. Participants were 439 (10-12 years) elementary schools'. Physical activity level by self-reporting, mental health using the parent-completed Child Health Questionnaire, and happiness was assessed using a Persian translated version of the Subjective Happiness Scale. Hierarchical logistic regression analysis was applied in two steps using the enter method to analyze data in the SPSS version 17.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Backward logistic regression analysis showed that gender of the parent who answered the study questions, father's education, educational grade of children, BMI, physical function, physical health, health status of the children and family function were significantly related to the children's physical activity level.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Promoting parents' awareness and schools' staff about importance of physical activities especially in recess times must be an important part of school and community mental health promotion programs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Education & Promotion, Faculty of Health, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences Tabriz 14711, Iran.
authors.forename: Abdolreza
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shaghaghi
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Education & Promotion, Faculty of Health, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences Tabriz 14711, Iran.
authors.forename: Massumeh
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Piri
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Education & Promotion, Faculty of Health, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences Tabriz 14711, Iran ; Clinical Psychiatry Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz 46184 , Iran.
authors.forename: Hamid
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Allahverdipour
authors.affiliation: Traffic Injury Prevention Research Center, Faculty of Health, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz 14711, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Asghari-Jafarabadi
keywords: General health; Happiness; Physical activity; Recess activity