Background: The role of early childhood education and care (ECEC) is crucial in the implementation of the physical activity recommendations during long ECEC days. Young children should engage in 180 minutes of physical activity spread throughout the day, including 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). To attain the goal more information is needed on children's time use and physical activity (PA) in children's activities.
Aim:The purposes of this quantitative observational study were twofold: (1) to examine children's time use and (2) to describe which children's activities best generate physical activity, specifically MVPA, in ECEC.Setting: Altogether, 2879 Finnish children, aged from 1-to 6-years, participated in this study.
Methods:The data of 57 881 observations were analysed using cross-tabulation and a z-test.Results: Daily routines (e.g. eating, dressing, napping and transition), task or seatwork and material play accounted for almost 70% of children's sedentary behaviour and less than 10% of MVPA. The best MVPA generators were physical activities (that generated 57.4% of all MVPA in boys vs. 62.8% in girls, respectively), rule play (11% in boys vs. 6.7% in girls) and role play (10.1% in boys vs. 9.9% in girls) as well as action not allowed (3.3% in boys vs. 1.2% in girls).Conclusions: Educators should integrate physical activities, rule play and role play more in ECEC day to support the realisation of the recommendations.
We explored 10–11 year-old children’s moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) to describe how it is distributed within weekdays, weekend days, the segments of a schoolday and how it meets the global recommendation of ≥ 60 min daily MVPA. Participants were from two fourth classes (N = 33; 20 boys, 13 girls) in the city of Vantaa, capitol area of Finland. PA was measured using a Polar Active® (PAC) wrist-worn accelerometer. A diary supported the accelerometer data. Raw metabolic equivalent (MET) data from accelerometers were transmitted to computer, organized and uploaded to SPSS. We used MET-thresholds moderate PA (MPA) ≥ 3 6, vigorous (VPA) ≥ 6 and consequently moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA) ≥ 3. Average daily MVPA was 92 minutes. Differences between weekdays and weekend days existed, but they were at least partly caused by the weather. Global recommendation was met by 21%, more often by girls than boys. However, almost everyone met the recommendation ≥ 4 a week. In segments of the schoolday (lessons, long recesses, short recesses and lunch breaks) the children were physically quite active at 5, 12, 4 and 8 minutes, respectively. Hypothetically summed up, a schoolday accumulated 50 minutes MVPA. Boys accumulated quite systematically slightly more MVPA during schooldays and leisure time. Schooldays play an important role in children’s total MVPA and the current situation is decent. However, teacher educators, decision makers, school administration, principals, teachers and school staff should still aim at finding new ways of making schooldays even more physically active.
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