School Day Energy Expenditure in Elementary School Children.

BACKGROUND: The purpose was to characterize energy expenditure (EE) during academic subjects and activities during an elementary school day. METHODS: Children in 2nd to 4th grades (N = 33) wore the SenseWear Armband (SWA) for 5 school days to measure EE. Teachers' logs were compared with SWA data to extract information about EE throughout the day. Energy expenditure was also compared among grades. RESULTS: After controlling for body mass, grade level was not a significant predictor of average daily caloric expenditure, F (2, 17.58) = .29, P = .75, ω(2) = .05. When comparing activities throughout the day, relative rates of EE differed significantly, Wilks' F (7, 23) = 52.2, P = .00, ηp(2) = .94, with PE and recess having higher EE. When academic subjects were compared (math, science, language arts), relative rate of EE was also significantly different, Wilks' F (2, 30) = 4.31, P = .02, ηp(2) = .22. For the full sample, relative rate EE was higher in science than in language arts. CONCLUSIONS: The school day provides opportunity for EE for children. These data support the potential benefit of active instruction in language arts as a method to increase school day EE.

Corporate Fitness Members’ Perceptions of the Environment and Their Intrinsic Motivation

El objetivo de este estudio fue analizar la relación entre las percepciones de los empleados sobre el clima motivacional de su Centro de Fitness Corporativo, con su motivación intrínseca hacia la práctica física, así como sus percepciones acerca de la preocupación de los empleadores sobre sus comportamientos saludables. Participaron en el estudio 143 miembros de Centros Corporativos de Fitness del medio sur de los estados Unidos de América, a los que se les administraron los siguientes cuestionarios: 1) el Perceived Motivational Climate in Exercise Questionnaire (con escalas de orientación a metas de ego y tarea); 2) Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (con cuatro subscalas), y 3) la Valued by Employer Scale. Los análisis de regresión revelaron que las percepciones del clima motivacional de ego/tarea estaban positivamente relacionadas con el interés/diversión de los empleados, con su competencia percibida, con el esfuerzo/importancia atribuidas al ejercicio, y con su percepción de ser valorados por sus empleadores. Por lo tanto, el PMCEQ se muestra como una herramienta relevante en los estudios de psicología del ejercicio para medir las percepciones de los empleados acerca del ambiente existente en su Centro de Fitness (AU)

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of employees’ perceptions of the motivational climate in their corporate fitness center to their intrinsic motivation toward exercise, and their perceptions of their employer’s concern for their health behaviors. Members of corporate fitness centers (N = 143) in the Midsouthern region of the US were invited to complete a survey with the following measures: 1) the Perceived Motivational Climate in Exercise Questionnaire (i.e., task- and ego-involving scales), 2) Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (four subscales), and 3) Valued by Employer Scale. Regression analysis revealed that perceptions of a task-involving climate were positively related to employees’ interest/enjoyment, perceived competence, effort/importance with regard to exercise, and their sense of feeling valued by their employer. The PMCEQ can be a valuable tool in the exercise psychology literature to measure employees’ perceptions of their fitness center environment (AU)