Changes in Physical Fitness Parameters in a Portuguese Sample of Adolescents during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A One-Year Longitudinal Study.

Due to a worldwide response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many changes were imposed on individuals' daily lives, including those related to the physical activity of children and adolescents. The present study aims to comprehend the impact of early COVID-19 pandemic restrictions on Portuguese adolescents' physical fitness parameters during two school years. A total of 640 students from the 5th to the 12th grades participated in the longitudinal study. Data on body composition, aerobic fitness, speed, agility, lower and upper body strength, and flexibility were collected at three moments: 1. before the COVID-19 pandemic (December 2019); 2. after the COVID-19 lockdown when the schools reopened delivering in-person classes (October 2020), and 3. two months after the in-person classes started (December 2020). To analyze the overall changes between the three moments and between two age groups, we conducted repeated measure ANOVAs. The main findings indicate that participants' body composition (i.e., waist circumference) and aerobic fitness (i.e., maximal oxygen uptake) deteriorated after the first lockdown but improved two months after the in-person classes started. However, the same did not happen to neuromuscular fitness (i.e., horizontal Jumps and Sit and Reach). These findings suggest that the COVID-19 lockdown may have negatively impacted adolescents' physical fitness, particularly older adolescents. Altogether, data reinforce the importance of in-person classes and school context in promoting adolescents' physical health.

Changes in Student's Breakfast and Snack Consumption during the Second COVID-19 Lockdown in Portugal: A Five-Wave Study.

The circumstances of the COVID-19 lockdown affected many students' life spheres, including their feeding patterns and snack intake. The main goals of the present study were to: (a) analyze the changes in students' breakfast and snacking consumption during lockdown, and (b) analyze changes in the content of the students' snacks using the Healthy Eating Index. This study analyzed data from a sample of 726 students from 36 classes from the late elementary (i.e., fifth grade) through high school (i.e., twelfth grade) from two public schools in the north of Portugal. Data were collected in five moments during the 2020/2021 school year, pre-, during, and post-second lockdown moments. Throughout the five moments, almost 90% of the students ate breakfast, and the majority brought snacks from home to eat in school. Surprisingly, there was an increase in the quality of the snacks consumed during lockdown compared to the pre-lockdown moments (e.g., consumption of more whole and total fruits and less consumption of food with added sugar, saturated fats, refined grains, and fatty acids). Suggestions for healthy behavior promotion will be discussed, such as improving the school food environment and teaching children to prepare healthy lunch boxes.

Structured reflection increases intentions to reduce other people's health risks during COVID-19.

People believe they should consider how their behavior might negatively impact other people, Yet their behavior often increases others' health risks. This creates challenges for managing public health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined a procedure wherein people reflect on their personal criteria regarding how their behavior impacts others' health risks. We expected structured reflection to increase people's intentions and decisions to reduce others' health risks. Structured reflection increases attention to others' health risks and the correspondence between people's personal criteria and behavioral intentions. In four experiments during COVID-19, people (N  = 12,995) reported their personal criteria about how much specific attributes, including the impact on others' health risks, should influence their behavior. Compared with control conditions, people who engaged in structured reflection reported greater intentions to reduce business capacity (experiment 1) and avoid large social gatherings (experiments 2 and 3). They also donated more to provide vaccines to refugees (experiment 4). These effects emerged across seven countries that varied in collectivism and COVID-19 case rates (experiments 1 and 2). Structured reflection was distinct from instructions to carefully deliberate (experiment 3). Structured reflection increased the correlation between personal criteria and behavioral intentions (experiments 1 and 3). And structured reflection increased donations more among people who scored lower in cognitive reflection compared with those who scored higher in cognitive reflection (experiment 4). These findings suggest that structured reflection can effectively increase behaviors to reduce public health risks.

Bedtime procrastination during the second COVID-19 lockdown in Portugal.

Introduction: Bedtime procrastination is the deliberate delay of the time an individual goes to bed in the absence of external reasons. The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed families to establish new routines and ways of managing newfound roles and responsibilities. This scenario is likely to exacerbate bedtime procrastination due to, for example, a challenge in balancing professional and personal life. Objective: The aim is to present preliminary findings regarding bedtime procrastination and its relation to sociodemographic characteristics, sleep routines, perceived daily fatigue, dinnertime, and activities performed near bedtime, during the second lockdown in Portugal. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted with a sample of 560 adults. Results: During home confinement, most people (79.46%) delayed their bedtime. However, this delay does not seem to be affecting the number of hours of sleep, as 88.60% were sleeping the recommended or appropriate number of hours. Nevertheless, most of the participants reported feeling tired throughout the day (53.04%), and individuals who reported to have procrastinated their sleep are those who reported more tiredness (r pb=.33, p<.01). Additionally, bedtime procrastination is positively associated with findings related to dinnertime (e.g., dinner between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., r pb=.19, p<.01) and with engagement in activities near bedtime (e.g., studying/working, r pb=.39, p<.01). Conclusion: Current data shows relationships between bedtime procrastination and most of the studied variables. Specifically, findings indicate that lack of routines, especially scheduled nighttime routines (e.g., studying/working near bedtime), may have contributed to bedtime procrastination during the second lockdown in Portugal.

Collective Health versus Individual Freedom: Goal Centrality and Political Identity Shape COVID-19 Prevention Behaviors

During the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials have recommended actions such as wearing masks and staying home to reduce infection rates and promote well-being. However, individual compliance requires sacrifice and has been inconsistent. These significant behavioral changes often conflict with other parts of consumers’ identities, including their political orientation. We investigate goal centrality—that is, considering a goal as a major part of the self-concept—and message alignment as easy-to-implement strategies to enhance compliance. In study 1, reflecting upon a goal to stay healthy as a central (vs. peripheral) component of the self positively influenced intentions and health-promoting behaviors for less conservative individuals. In study 2, we showed that politically aligned messaging increased fluency, bolstering intentions and compliance for both liberals and conservatives. Our findings reveal promising tools to promote compliance in the face of temptations;we discuss additional means for policy makers and other entities to foster community well-being.

Politicians polarize and experts depolarize public support for COVID-19 management policies across countries.

Political polarization impeded public support for policies to reduce the spread of COVID-19, much as polarization hinders responses to other contemporary challenges. Unlike previous theory and research that focused on the United States, the present research examined the effects of political elite cues and affective polarization on support for policies to manage the COVID-19 pandemic in seven countries (n = 12,955): Brazil, Israel, Italy, South Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Across countries, cues from political elites polarized public attitudes toward COVID-19 policies. Liberal and conservative respondents supported policies proposed by ingroup politicians and parties more than the same policies from outgroup politicians and parties. Respondents disliked, distrusted, and felt cold toward outgroup political elites, whereas they liked, trusted, and felt warm toward both ingroup political elites and nonpartisan experts. This affective polarization was correlated with policy support. These findings imply that policies from bipartisan coalitions and nonpartisan experts would be less polarizing, enjoying broader public support. Indeed, across countries, policies from bipartisan coalitions and experts were more widely supported. A follow-up experiment replicated these findings among US respondents considering international vaccine distribution policies. The polarizing effects of partisan elites and affective polarization emerged across nations that vary in cultures, ideologies, and political systems. Contrary to some propositions, the United States was not exceptionally polarized. Rather, these results suggest that polarizing processes emerged simply from categorizing people into political ingroups and outgroups. Political elites drive polarization globally, but nonpartisan experts can help resolve the conflicts that arise from it.

Children Are Back to School, but Is Play Still in Lockdown? Play Experiences, Social Interactions, and Children's Quality of Life in Primary Education in the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020.

The right to play is crucial for the overall development of children. Several studies highlight the need to have time and space to play, especially at school where children spend much of their time. Unfortunately, in formal education the obsession with academic achievements sidelines and ignores the importance of play. The neglection of play had already reached a critical stage before the pandemic, so data are needed to realize how the right to play in school is presently affected. This paper aims to understand children's play experience in primary education during the pandemic. It investigates what activities children participated in and what materials were used, and provides insight into the social interactions between peers. Furthermore, children's quality of life is explored. A group of 370 Portuguese children answered a questionnaire on play and social interactions, alongside with Peds 4.0TM on health-related quality of life (HRQOL). The results showed that recess still emerges as a significant element of children's daily lives, but COVID-19 has brought limitations on play experiences and peer-interaction. It might also have impacted HRQOL, especially in emotional functioning. Since play, health and well-being are closely connected, play opportunities at school are crucial in helping children to thrive in the pandemic, and should be invested in.

"Practical and reflexive" challenges for occupational therapy's undergraduate courses in pandemic times

The Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa em Terapia Ocupacional - RENETO (National Network of Education and Research in Occupational Therapy), Brazil, attentive to the issues involved in the formation and production of knowledge in the field, has been searching with peers for ways to carry out a complex reading of reality and, from this, create and implement strategies to be able to deal with the demands imposed, respecting the regionalities and institutional nature in which the undergraduate courses are running on. [...]based on a survey carried out with the coordinators of Occupational Therapy courses, which aimed to understand how the undergraduate courses have adhered or not to teaching through digital platforms, this paper reflects on decision making about pedagogical, ethical, and political dimensions in the scope of academic activities not only in the context of the pandemic, but also considering the projections of the new reality imposed by the pandemic. Palavras-chave: Terapia Ocupacional, Ensino, Pesquisa, Covid-19. 1Introduction The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a state of pandemic worldwide on March 11, 2020, due to the increasing incidence of contagion by SARS-CoV-2. [...]several governors in Brazil followed guidelines for social distancing as a measure to slow down contagion and, consequently, not to collapse the health care system. Even though the task of evaluating the possibility of implementing curriculum content through virtual environments and technological tools has been guided by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), the challenges immediately presented to the courses were the unfamiliarity of the academic community with the resources available in the virtual environments, the reorganization of ongoing research and projects - which meet the new specificities of the context of the sanitary, economic and humanitarian crisis - and the different socio-economic conditions of students who sharply express the inequality of access to technology resources and quality internet, but also social goods, such as housing, income, health, social support, ensuring equal conditions for home studies. [...]since its institutionalization, in the middle of the 20th century, occupational therapy in Brazil has been a profession for women. [...]most professors and students are of this gender group.