Using accelerometers and global positioning system devices to assess gender and age differences in children's school, transport, leisure and home based physical activity

BACKGROUND: Knowledge on domain-specific physical activity (PA) has the potential to advance public health interventions and inform new policies promoting children’s PA. The purpose of this study is to identify and assess domains (leisure, school, transport, home) and subdomains (e.g., recess, playgrounds, and urban green space) for week day moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA) using objective measures and investigate gender and age differences. METHODS: Participants included 367 Danish children and adolescents (11–16 years, 52% girls) with combined accelerometer and Global Positioning System (GPS) data (mean 2.5 days, 12.7 hrs/day). The Personal Activity and Location Measurement System and a purpose-built database assessed data in 15-second epochs to determine PA and assign epochs to 4 domains and 11 subdomains. Frequencies and proportions of time spent in MVPA were determined and differences assessed using multi-level modeling. RESULTS: More than 90% of MVPA was objectively assigned to domains/subdomains. Boys accumulated more MVPA overall, in leisure, school and transport (all p < 0.05). Children compared with adolescents accumulated more MVPA, primarily through more school MVPA (p < 0.05). Boys spent a large proportion of time accumulating MVPA in playgrounds, active transport, Physical Education, sports facilities, urban green space and school grounds. Girls spent a significant proportion of time accumulating MVPA in active transport and playgrounds. No gender or age differences were found in the home domain. CONCLUSIONS: Large variations were found in PA frequency and intensity across domains/subdomains. Significant gender differences were found, with girls being less active in almost all domains and subdomains. Objectively measured patterns of PA across domains/subdomains can be used to better tailor PA interventions and inform future policies for promoting child PA

Developing Suitable Buffers to Capture Transport Cycling Behavior

The association between neighborhood built environment and cycling has received considerable attention in health literature over the last two decades, but different neighborhood definitions have been used and it is unclear which one is most appropriate. Administrative or fixed residential spatial units (e.g., home-buffer-based neighborhoods) are not necessarily representative for environmental exposure. An increased understanding of appropriate neighborhoods is needed. GPS cycling tracks from 78 participants for 7 days form the basis for the development and testing of different neighborhood buffers for transport cycling. The percentage of GPS points per square meter was used as indicator of the effectiveness of a series of different buffer types, including home-based network buffers, shortest route to city center buffers, and city center-directed ellipse-shaped buffers. The results show that GPS tracks can help us understand where people go and stay during the day, which can help us link built environment with cycling. Analysis showed that the further people live from the city center, the more elongated are their GPS tracks, and the better an ellipse-shaped directional buffer captured transport cycling behavior. In conclusion, we argue that in order to be able to link built environment factors with different forms of physical activity, we must study the most likely area people use. In this particular study, to capture transport cycling, with its relatively large radius of action, city center-directed ellipse-shaped buffers yielded better results than traditional home-based network buffer types. The ellipse-shaped buffer types could therefore be considered an alternative to more traditional buffers or administrative units in future studies of transport cycling behavior

Individual and day-to-day differences in domain-specific physical activity of 10- to 11-year-old children in Denmark-Measured using GPS and accelerometry

OBJECTIVE: Physical activity (PA) and the achievement of 60 min of moderate-to-physical-activity daily is declining in school-aged-children, and effective strategies to increase PA is needed. We aimed to examine the individual and day-to-day distribution of PA on schooldays among children aged 10-11 in 4 domains-school, home, transport, and other.METHODS: Data were collected from August to September 2020 using accelerometer and GPS data to measure daily PA-levels and to locate in which domain PA occurs. Daily PA-levels were assessed in each domain, and analyses of the individual and day-to-day differences in PA-levels were calculated.RESULTS: The school domain contributed the most to children's daily MVPA with 47% of average MVPA, followed by the home domain with 26% of daily average MVPA, the other domain with 19% of daily average MVPA and the transport domain with 8% of daily average MVPA. Our results showed individual differences in where PA occurs, day-to-day differences in total MVPA and day-to-day differences in the MVPA-levels across domains.CONCLUSIONS: The school domain contributed the most to children's MVPA-levels followed by the domains of home, other, and transport. Our study indicated that PA-levels and the distribution of PA across domains differ from day-to-day. Future interventions should target more than one domain to accommodate these individual- and day-to-day differences in the goal of increasing PA-levels and to reduce the decline in PA seen from childhood to adolescence.</p

Preschool children's physical activity in the home, childcare and neighbourhood environment:A latent profile analysis using device-based measures

Based on the socioecological conceptual model, the physical environment within the home, childcare and neighbourhood domains are key factors that influence preschool children's physical activity; however, the relative importance of each of these domains for preschool children's physical activity is unclear. We explored the physical environment characteristics within three latent profiles of 115 preschool children aged 2-5 years based on where they accumulated moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) across five GPS-derived environmental domains. The three profiles were "Active at home" ( n  = 41), "Active except close to home" ( n  = 61), and "Active except in local neighbourhood" ( n  = 13). Compared to other profiles, "Active at home" had fewer parks and playgrounds within their 500-1600 m neighbourhood. Findings suggest preschool children's MVPA profiles are reflections of their physical environmental opportunities. </p

Psychosocial and Physiological Health Outcomes of Green Exercise in Children and Adolescents - A Systematic Review

Both physical activity (PA) and nature exposure are associated with several youth health benefits. However, the health outcomes when being physically active in nature, called Green Exercise (GE), are less clear. Thus, the purpose of this systematic review was to provide an overview of the psychosocial and physiological outcomes of GE in children and adolescents and to outline future GE research directions. The PRISMA statement guided the review. Web of Science, PubMed, ERIC, and APA PsychNET were systematically searched in February 2019, including studies between 2000 and 2019. Fourteen of 1175 identified publications were included, which reported 15 different psychosocial and six different physiological outcomes, with some studies reporting more than one outcome. For 16 outcomes, studies reported either similar or no effects for both GE and comparison groups. For six outcomes, studies reported stronger effects for GE, for three outcomes, studies reported stronger effects in the comparison group. Evidence was rated as weak, using the EPHPP tool. Thus, GE does not have deleterious effects for children and adolescents compared to PA in other settings. GE might be beneficial; however, due to the study’s heterogeneity and quality, it is premature to make definite conclusions. Future research should build the quality of evidence for GE, use more rigorous research designs, and investigate the underlying effects and mechanisms of GE