Descriptive analysis of preschool physical activity and sedentary behaviors – a cross sectional study of 3-year-olds nested in the SKOT cohort

Abstract

BackgroundFurther collection of surveillance data is warranted, particularly in preschool populations, for optimizing future public health promotion strategies. This study aims to describe physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior (SB) across different settings, including time in and out of daycare, and to determine the proportion of children complying with suggested PA recommendations in a high income country.MethodsValid PA was assessed in 231 children (36.4 ± 1.1 months) with the Actigraph GT3X accelerometer, and information regarding date and time of dropping-off/picking-up children in daycare was provided by parents. Mean total PA (i.e., counts per minute (CPM)), moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), SB time, and non-SB time was generated and compared across settings. Post hoc, PA and SB were examined in subgroups of low-active (1st quartile) and high-active (4th quartile) children.ResultsOverall, boys and girls spent 1.4 ± 0.3 h/day and 1.2 ± 0.4 h/day in MVPA, respectively. Likewise, boys and girls accumulated 6.7 ± 0.8 h and 6.8 ± 0.9 h of SB time per day, respectively. Higher PA levels consistently co-occurred with lower SB time in the daycare setting. Girls accumulated less SB time in daycare than before and after daycare (β = −12.2%, p < 0.001 & β = −3.8%, p < 0.001, respectively). In boys, daycare-days contained more PA and less SB than non-daycare-days (CPM: β =29, p = 0.046, %MVPA: β = 0.83, p = 0.007, %SB: β = −2.3, p < 0.001, respectively). All children fulfilled recommendations of at least 3 h of daily non-SB. Eighty-nine percent of boys and 72% of girls met the daily 1-h MVPA recommendation for 5 year-olds. Lower proportions of children, especially boys, fulfilled MVPA recommendation on days with no daycare attendance. Generally, large mean differences in MVPA and SB were observed across all settings between the most active and the least active children, and only 7% of the low-active girls and 59% of the low-active boys fulfilled MVPA recommendations.ConclusionsOverall, the majority of children fulfilled MVPA guidelines for 5 year-olds, and all children complied with suggested recommendations of 180 min of daily activity. Daycare time was found to represent an important setting for PA. Substantial and consistent differences observed in the amount of time spent physically active between high- and low-active children across all settings indicate substantial variations in young children’s PA levels irrespective of the context.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-017-4521-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviors of Young Children: Trends from 2009 to 2018

“…Furthermore, parents need to be aware of their important role as PA models. This study and several others [20,84] revealed that at weekends young children present low PA levels, with the vast majority (97%) spending their time on sedentary behaviors [20,85]. Taking into consideration that, at the weekends, young children share their leisure-time with their parents, this finding shows the negative influence of parents on their offspring's PA and thus calls for action.…”

Prevalence of objectively measured sedentary behavior in early years: Systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…Sample sizes ranged from 40 to 1512 participants. Most studies (n = 42) reported SB only in pre‐schoolers; four studies included only toddlers, and four studies included both toddlers and pre‐schoolers . The characteristics of the included studies in this systematic review are depicted in Table and in online Resource and .…”

“…Of the total studies, 18 were conducted in the United States, eight in Canada, five in Australia, three in Sweden, and two each in Scotland, Belgium, and Holland . Only one study was conducted in each of Portugal, New Zealand, Switzerland, England, Norway, Denmark, Japan, and Brazil . Two studies reported data from children living in different countries.…”

“…The majority of the studies (n = 34) studies assessed SB with ActiGraph; seven studies used Actical; one study combined two devices (ActiGraph and Actitrainer); RT‐3, TracmorD, Lifecoder, Actiheart, and activPAL were used in one study each. In two studies, the accelerometers were used on the wrist, while all other studies used the device on the waist, or, for the activPAL, on the thigh …”

“…Most studies directly reported the percentage of time spent in SB; however, in some studies the percentage was calculated. When it was not possible to calculate the percentage of time spent in SB for the whole sample, or for boys and girls separately, data were requested from the papers’ authors . The majority of authors replied to the request, and therefore, their data were also included in the meta‐analyses.…”