Abstract
Physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep guidelines for preschool children were already established and integrated into the 24 h movement behavior guidelines in 2017. The aim of the current study was to investigate correlates of meeting or not meeting the physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep guidelines in Belgian preschool children. In total, 595 preschool children (53.3% boys, 46.7% girls, mean age: 4.2 years) provided complete data for the three behaviors and potentially associated correlates. Physical activity was objectively measured with accelerometers. Screen time, sleep duration, and correlates were reported by parents with the use of a questionnaire. Backward logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with meeting all guidelines for weekdays and weekend days. In the final model, older preschoolers (OR = 1.89), having a normal weight compared to being underweight (OR = 0.30), having parents that do not watch a lot of television (OR = 0.99), and having a father that attained higher education (OR = 1.91) were associated with meeting all guidelines on weekdays. For weekend days, a significant association was found for attending a sports club (OR = 1.08). Overall, only a few factors were associated with meeting the guidelines. A more comprehensive measurement of preschool children’s potential correlates of physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep is warranted.
Highlights
In the past, important lifestyle behaviors, such as physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep have mainly been studied in isolation [1,2,3,4]
An accelerometer was worn by 1082 preschool children, out of which 80.1% (n = 867) had a minimum of three days of valid data to make them eligible for the data analyses
These results show that older preschool children were more likely to meet the physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep guidelines on weekdays compared to younger preschool children
Summary
Important lifestyle behaviors, such as physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep have mainly been studied in isolation [1,2,3,4]. Guidelines for physical activity [5], sedentary behavior [5], and sleep [6,7] were established for preschool children. The guidelines state that preschool children should be physically active for a minimum of 180 min per day at any intensity, to limit screen time to a maximum of 60 min per day, and to have good-quality sleep for 10 to 13 h each night. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 7006; doi:10.3390/ijerph17197006 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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