Abstract
BackgroundA growing body of evidence suggest that the children’s physical activity (PA) level in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings are insufficient. Since most children attend ECEC settings for many hours on most days of the week, and these institutions reach children across the socioeconomic spectrum, the ECEC settings may serve as an ideal avenue for increasing physical activity level, reduce sedentary time and enhance the overall health of young children. This paper investigates the effectiveness of the “Active Kindergarten – Active Children” study to increase children’s PA level and reduce sedentary time within the ECEC setting.MethodsAccelerometers were used to asses PA and sedentary time. A total of 116 three to four-year olds took part in a randomised controlled trial in 11 ECEC settings. Participants were cluster-randomised, by ECEC setting, to either a 12 week staff-led and expert-supported intervention or a waiting list control group.ResultsThe intervention group increased time spent in moderate- and vigorous intensity PA by 10 min/day (95% CI = 3, 18; P = 0.01), took 1909 more steps per day (95% CI = 1130, 2688; P < 0.01) and reduced sedentary time with 14 min/day (95% CI = − 27, − 1; P = 0.04) compared to the control group. The intervention group had a 2.4 higher odds (95% CI = 1.05, 5.7; P = 0.04) of meeting the PA recommendations compared to the control group at follow-up.ConclusionsOur results show that a flexible staff-led and expert-supported multicomponent PA intervention can increase total PA level, moderate- and vigorous intensity PA and reduce time spent sedentary in three to four-year old children during their stay in ECEC settings.Trial registrationThe trial was retrospectively registered on September 19, 2020 and available online at ClinicalTrials.gov: No. NCT04555746.
Highlights
A growing body of evidence suggest that the children’s physical activity (PA) level in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings are insufficient
After excluding participants with unusable accelerometer data (N = 15), a final sample of 101 children was included in the analyses (77.7% of children assessed for eligibility)
Excluded participants were distributed between groups and did not differ in age, sex or PA level compared to included participants
Summary
A growing body of evidence suggest that the children’s physical activity (PA) level in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings are insufficient. A growing body of evidence suggest that the children’s physical activity (PA) level in childhood education and care (ECEC) settings are insufficient [1, 2]. Many children have healthy and active lifestyles, there seems to be a relatively large group of children with a low PA level [6] This could lead to negative developmental effects such as low fitness level, weak motor skills and obesity [7]. This is especially worrying because it is known that PA level often tracks from childhood into adulthood [8, 9]. Early intervention is crucial, given that PA plays a pivotal role in children’s overall health and is associated with many positive health outcomes, including physical fitness [10], cardiovascular health [11], bone health [12] and psychosocial and cognitive development [12, 13]
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