Physical Activity Behavior Patterns during School Leisure Time in Children

Craig W Smith ,James C Hannon ,Timothy A Brusseau ,You Fu ,Ryan D Burns

doi:10.7575/aiac.ijkss.v.4n.1p.17

Craig W Smith , James C Hannon + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijkss.v.4n.1p.17

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Abstract

Optimizing physical activity (PA) in children is paramount to attenuate the incidence of chronic disease and to improve social and cognitive health. Limited research exists examining the observed PA patterns during school leisure times in children from the U.S. The purpose of this study was to examine the observed PA patterns of children during three school leisure times: before school, during lunch, and after school. The SOPLAY instrument was used to observe PA during the three leisure times across six weeks at four elementary schools in the U.S. Observer PA counts were stratified by sex, PA intensity (sedentary, walking, and very active), and leisure time. Multi-level models were employed to examine the effect of leisure time and PA intensity on observer PA counts, adjusting for day and school-level clustering. Lunch displayed the greatest number of counts for sedentary, walking, and very active PA intensities ( p 0.05). After school displayed the fewest counts for walking and very active PA in both sexes ( p < 0.05). An emphasis should be placed on increasing walking and very active PA intensities before school and during lunch in girls and after school in both sexes. Keywords: after school, before school, lunch, SOPLAY, systematic observation

Highlights

The benefits of optimal levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) are numerous (Armstrong, Tomkinson, & Ekelund, 2011; Blair et al, 1995; Boddy et al, 2014), yet less of one-half of children aged 6 to 11 years meet the recommended daily levels (Troiano et al, 2008)
Post hoc tests revealed that lunch had a greater average daily PA count than before school (Mean ∆ = 30.14, p < 0.001) and after school (Mean ∆ = 49.13, p < 0.001), but there were no statistically significant differences in average daily PA counts comparing the before and after school leisure times (p = 0.239)
Boys tended to display a greater number of very active PA counts compared to sedentary counts before school and during lunch, while girls did not display significant differences in PA intensity counts before school or during lunch

Summary

Introduction

The benefits of optimal levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) are numerous (Armstrong, Tomkinson, & Ekelund, 2011; Blair et al, 1995; Boddy et al, 2014), yet less of one-half of children aged 6 to 11 years meet the recommended daily levels (Troiano et al, 2008). Participating in active play is important because it is estimated that only 3.8% of elementary schools in the U.S offer daily physical education (Lee, Burgeson, Fulton, & Spain, 2007), there is limited opportunities to accumulate a significant amount of PA during the school day. This is considering that children and adolescents tend to participate in more MVPA during school days compared to non-school days (Brusseau et al, 2011)

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