Abstract
Background: Schools have been identified as important settings for health promotion through physical activity participation, particularly as children are insufficiently active for health. The aim of this study was to investigate the child and school-level influences on children′s physical activity levels and sedentary time during school hours in a sample of children from a low-income community; Methods: One hundred and eighty-six children (110 boys) aged 9–10 years wore accelerometers for 7 days, with 169 meeting the inclusion criteria of 16 h∙day−1 for a minimum of three week days. Multilevel prediction models were constructed to identify significant predictors of sedentary time, light, and moderate to vigorous physical activity during school hour segments. Child-level predictors (sex, weight status, maturity offset, cardiorespiratory fitness, physical activity self-efficacy, physical activity enjoyment) and school-level predictors (number on roll, playground area, provision score) were entered into the models; Results: Maturity offset, fitness, weight status, waist circumference-to-height ratio, sedentary time, moderate to vigorous physical activity, number of children on roll and playground area significantly predicted physical activity and sedentary time; Conclusions: Research should move towards considering context-specific physical activity and its correlates to better inform intervention strategies.
Highlights
Physical activity (PA) is associated with numerous health benefits in school-aged children [1].Beneficial effects relate to cardiovascular [2] and cardiometabolic risk factors [3], and mental health [4].Internationally it is recommended that children engage in moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) every day for at least 60 min [5,6,7]
Reasons given by schools that declined to participate included lack of time to commit to the three phases of the project, and uncertainty as to whether they would be able to get parental consent for a sufficient number of children
Significant differences were observed between boys and girls for school day sedentary time (ST) and MVPA, for MVPA during morning break and physical education (PE), and for lunch break ST, light-intensity PA (LPA), and MVPA in the current study, but sex was not significantly related to ST or PA in the multilevel analyses
Summary
Physical activity (PA) is associated with numerous health benefits in school-aged children [1].Beneficial effects relate to cardiovascular [2] and cardiometabolic risk factors [3], and mental health [4].Internationally it is recommended that children engage in moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) every day for at least 60 min [5,6,7]. Physical activity (PA) is associated with numerous health benefits in school-aged children [1]. Multilevel prediction models were constructed to identify significant predictors of sedentary time, light, and moderate to vigorous physical activity during school hour segments. Child-level predictors (sex, weight status, maturity offset, cardiorespiratory fitness, physical activity self-efficacy, physical activity enjoyment) and school-level predictors (number on roll, playground area, provision score) were entered into the models; Results: Maturity offset, fitness, weight status, waist circumference-to-height ratio, sedentary time, moderate to vigorous physical activity, number of children on roll and playground area significantly predicted physical activity and sedentary time; Conclusions: Research should move towards considering context-specific physical activity and its correlates to better inform intervention strategies
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