Abstract
Most Canadian children are not meeting the recommended 60 min of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day. Research suggests that children’s perceptions of their environment have an influence on their physical activity behaviours, but there is a lack of generalizability among previous work. The purpose of this study was to assess the mediating effect of children’s perceptions of barriers to physical activity on the relationship between their environments and their level of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (measured with accelerometers). Structural equation modelling stratified by gender was used to assess the research objective in a sample of 546 participants aged 8–14 years old from Northwestern and Southwestern Ontario, Canada. In both models stratified by gender, perceptions of barriers did not significantly mediate the relationship between urbanicity and physical activity. Independent of all other factors, there was no significant relationship between urbanicity and physical activity in girls, but there was in boys. These results offer insight into potential processes by which perceptions impact physical activity and provide initial information to further our understanding of the behavioural aspects of physical activity through multiple levels of analysis. Researchers must continue to improve efforts for quantifying the experience of children’s daily activity contexts.
Highlights
The ongoing trend of low levels of physical activity in Canadian children is a concern for population health [1,2], as physical activity participation is associated with many physical, mental and social health benefits [3,4,5]
The results indicated that barriers and the physical environment have a significant effect, and independently of each other have significant influences on moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), but perceptions of barriers do not mediate the relationship between the environment and physical activity in the study population
This study demonstrated the possibility for using an urbanicity spectrum and the value when assessing issues related to children’s physical activity, accounting for the limitations identified in the literature related to using a dichotomous rural versus urban definition of location [50,68,69]
Summary
The ongoing trend of low levels of physical activity in Canadian children is a concern for population health [1,2], as physical activity participation is associated with many physical, mental and social health benefits [3,4,5]. The current Canadian guidelines for physical activity recommend that children and youth Despite the wide variety of potential benefits to children’s health, only 33% of Canadian children achieve the recommended 60 min of MVPA each day [1]. Multiple factors have been associated with the achievement of physical activity guidelines, including individual-level characteristics (e.g., demographics, socio-economic status, knowledge, perceptions) and characteristics of the physical environment (e.g., urbanicity, accessibility to MVPA opportunities). While there are multiple individual-level factors that have been found to influence MVPA behaviour (e.g., ethnicity, adiposity, education/literacy), the relationship with MVPA is inconsistent throughout the literature [9,10]
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