Differences in ​the proportion of children meeting behavior guidelines ​between summer ​and school by socioeconomic status and race

Abstract

Objective: Children who fail to meet activity, sleep, and screen-time guidelines are at increased risk for obesity. Further, children who are Black are more likely to have obesity when compared to children who are White, and children from low-income households are at increased risk for obesity when compared to children from higher-income households. The objective of this study was to evaluate the proportion of days meeting obesogenic behavior guidelines during the school year compared to summer vacation by race and free/reduced priced lunch (FRPL) eligibility. Methods: Mixed-effects linear and logistic regressions estimated the proportion of days participants met activity, sleep, and screen-time guidelines during summer and school by race and FRPL eligibility within an observational cohort sample. Results: Children (n = 268, grades = K − 4, 44.1%FRPL, 59.0% Black) attending three schools participated. Children's activity, sleep, and screen-time were collected during an average of 23 school days and 16 days during summer vacation. During school, both children who were White and eligible for FRPL met activity, sleep, and screen-time guidelines on a greater proportion of days when compared to theirBlack and non-eligible counterparts. Significant differences in changes from school to summer in the proportion of days children met activity (−6.2%, 95CI = −10.1%, −2.3%; OR = 0.7, 95CI = 0.6, 0.9) and sleep (7.6%, 95CI = 2.9%, 12.4%; OR = 2.1, 95CI = 1.4, 3.0) guidelines between children who were Black and White were observed. Differences in changes in activity (−8.5%, 95CI = −4.9%, −12.1%; OR = 1.5, 95CI = 1.3, 1.8) were observed between children eligible versus uneligible for FRPL.Conclusions: Summer vacation may be an important time for targeting activity and screen-time of children who are Black and/or eligible for FRPL.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Global Changes in Child and Adolescent Physical Activity During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Specifically, we found that reductions in physical activity during the pandemic were larger for samples at higher latitudes, corresponding to regions of the globe where restrictions coincided with a seasonal transition into the summer months. This finding is consistent with prepandemic data showing that unstructured summer days during school holidays can have negative associations with both academic and physical health behaviors, often referred to as the “summer slide.” A recent estimate of such a summertime reduction of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity of 11.4 minutes is substantially lower (~ 50%) than the pooled estimate from our meta-analysis, however. This suggests a substantial intensification during the pandemic of the usual summer slide into physical inactivity, which warrants particular attention from policy makers seeking to help children “sit less and play more,” as targeted initiatives will be needed as children emerge into the summer months.…”

“…72 A recent estimate of such a summertime reduction of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity of 11.4 minutes 69 is substantially lower (~50%) than the pooled estimate from our meta-analysis, however. This suggests a substantial intensification during the pandemic of the usual summer slide into physical inactivity, 70 which warrants particular attention from policy makers seeking to help children "sit less and play more," 73 as targeted initiatives will be needed as children emerge into the summer months.…”

Children's activity and diet behaviours in the summer holidays versus school year

“…In contrast to previous studies reporting children sleep longer in the summer holidays, 16,17 Children had poorer diet quality in the summer holidays; however, there was no notable or significant change in energy intake. These findings are consistent with studies reporting children consumed less fruit and vegetables and more added sugars during the summer holidays versus school time, 14 but are in contrast with studies concluding no dietary differences 18,36 or that children consumed more fruit during the summer holidays.…”

“…The findings of the current study align with previous studies that have found children spent more time on screens during the summer holidays compared with the school year 14,16–18,36 . This finding is expected given the presence of the 6‐h school day, which limits recreational screen time opportunities to mainly before and after school and on weekends.…”

“…These results align with results from previous studies, which report reductions in MVPA of between 3 and 12 min/day and increases in sedentary time of between 24 and 28 min/day during the summer holidays compared with the school year. 15,16,18 MVPA differed between SEP groups in interaction analyses with middle-SEP children engaging in less MVPA (modelled difference: to occur across all weight categories. Similarly, Volmut et al 15 reported that that changes in MVPA and sedentary time over the summer holidays were not associated with anthropometric measures.…”