ABSTRACT
Understanding the impacts of the built environment on physical activity (PA) is essential to promoting children's PA. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of schoolyard renovations and a PA recess curriculum alone and in combination on children's PA. This was a 2 (learning landscape [LL] vs. non-LL) × 2 (curriculum intervention vs. no curriculum intervention) factorial design with random assignment to the curriculum intervention, and six elementary schools per condition. PA outcomes were assessed preprogram, mid-program, immediate postprogram, and one year postprogram. No meaningful intervention effects were found. Lack of an effect may be due to the brief dose of recess, the curriculum not being integrated within the schoolyard, the LL implementation occurring prior to the study, or the already high levels of PA. Potential avenues to promote PA include making recess longer, integrating recess into the school curricula, and developing recess PA curricula integrating schoolyards.
Subject(s)
Built Environment , Curriculum , Exercise , Health Promotion , Play and Playthings , Schools , Accelerometry , Body Mass Index , Child , Cross-Sectional Studies , Female , Health Promotion/methods , Humans , Male , Self Report , Time Factors , Treatment OutcomeABSTRACT
PURPOSE: This study aimed to establish physical activity (PA) intensity cutpoints for a wrist-mounted GENEActiv accelerometer (ACC) in elementary school-age children. A second purpose was to apply cutpoints to a free-living sample and examine the duration of PA based on continuous 1-s epochs. METHODS: Metabolic and ACC data were collected during nine typical activities in 24 children age 6-11 yr. Measured VO2 values were divided by Schofield-estimated resting values to determine METs. ACC data were collected at 75 Hz, band pass filtered, and averaged over each 1-s interval. Receiver operator characteristic curves were used to establish cutpoints at sedentary (≤ 1.5 METs), light (1.6-2.99 METs), moderate (3.0-5.99 METs), and vigorous (≥ 6 METs) activities. These cutpoints were applied to a free-living independent data set to quantify the amount of moderate-vigorous PA (MVPA) and to examine how bout length (1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 15, and 60 s) affected the accumulation of MVPA. RESULTS: Receiver operator characteristic yielded areas under the curve of 0.956, 0.946, and 0.940 for sedentary, moderate, and vigorous intensities, respectively. Cutpoints for sedentary, moderate, and vigorous intensities were 0.190 g, 0.314 g, and 0.998 g, respectively. Intensity classification accuracies ranged from 27.6% (light) to 88.7% (vigorous) when cutpoints were applied to the calibration data. When applied to free-living data (n = 47 children age 6-11 yr), estimated daily MVPA was 308 min and decreased to 14.3 min when only including 1-min periods of continuous MVPA. CONCLUSIONS: Cutpoints that quantify movements associated with moderate-vigorous intensity, when applied to a laboratory protocol, result in large amounts of accumulated MVPA using the 1-s epoch compared to prior studies, highlighting the need for representative calibration activities and free-living validation of cutpoints and epoch length selection.
Subject(s)
Accelerometry/instrumentation , Accelerometry/methods , Motor Activity/physiology , Calibration , Child , Energy Metabolism , Humans , Oxygen Consumption , WristABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to determine the ability of first-, third-, and fifth-graders to accurately self-report height and weight. Self-reported and measured values for height and weight were recorded for 487 students. The ability to self-report a reasonable value for height and weight improved with grade level, but children in all 3 grade levels significantly underreported their height and weight. Only fifth-graders accurately self-reported their weight; therefore, using self-reported height and weight to determine the prevalence of overweight and obesity for elementary school-aged children is not recommended.
