Evaluation of Children's Thermal Sensation in an Outdoor Swimming Pool during Swimming Class

Abstract

During exercise in water children's body temperature are especially likely to be affected by a cold water environment because of their morphological characteristic. There is a lack of information about the recommended environmental condition for elementary school swimming classes based on scientific objective data. This study investigated multiple effects of the environmental condition, morphological characteristics, and swimwear condition on children's thermal sensation during an elementary school swimming class. The sixth-grade elementary school children (n=68) participated in a swimming class conducted in the outdoor pool eight times. They wore a normal swimsuit or a partial coverage wetsuit. During the swimming class, water temperature and ambient temperature were continuously measured. children's thermal sensation was asked at the poolside immediately after each swimming class. Multiple regression analysis was performed to make an estimation equation of children's thermal sensation. The equations contain three predictors of water temperature, swimwear condition, and their morphological characteristics. The result of standardized regression coefficients indicated that, water temperature was the greatest contributor to their thermal sensation, followed by the swimwear condition, and morphological characteristics. On the basis of the analysis, presumably the thermal effect of a partial coverage wetsuit was equivalent to the increase of water temperature by 2.1°C and it makes children feel warmer thermal sensation. Additionally, the thermally comfortable area was indicated as the relationship between water temperature and children's morphological characteristics for each swimwear condition.