Environmental Influences on Children’s Physical Activity in Early Childhood Education and Care

Abstract

Background: To examine the relationship between attributes of early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings and children’s physical activity and sedentary behavior. Methods: Cross-sectional study involving 490 children aged 2–5 years from 11 ECECs. The ECEC routine, size of the outdoor environment, and time spent in the outdoor environment were calculated for each center. Children’s physical activity and sedentary time were measured using accelerometers. Multivariate linear regressions were used to examine associations of the attributes of ECEC centers with the outcome variables, adjusting for the effects of center clustering and gender. Results: Children in ECECs that offered free routines (where children can move freely between indoor and outdoor environments) had lower levels of sedentary time (28.27 min/h vs 33.15 min/h; P = .001) and spent more time in total physical activity (7.99 min/h vs 6.57 min/h; P = .008) and moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity (9.49 min/h vs 7.31 min/h; P = .008). Children in ECECs with an outdoor environment >400 m2 had less sedentary time (28.94 min/h vs 32.42 min/h; P = .012) than those with areas <400 m2. Conclusion: Modifiable practices such as offering a free routine and increasing time spent in outdoor environments could potentially offer an easy and sustainable way for ECEC centers to promote physical activity and reduce sedentary time among children.

Environmental and practice factors associated with children’s device-measured physical activity and sedentary time in early childhood education and care centres: a systematic review

“…Eleven studies (12 articles) related the size of the outdoor play area to children's PA and ST. Of the 11 studies, nine were cross-sectional studies, one was a controlled before-after study [27] and one was a randomised controlled trial [59]. Five studies were conducted in Australia [20,27,[60][61][62], three in the USA [26,54,59] and one in Denmark [56]. One study, reported in two articles, was conducted in both the USA and Sweden [16,63].…”

“…Sample sizes ranged from 107 children across 10 ECECs [61] to 1002 children across 136 ECECs [60]. Three studies compared movement behaviours of outdoor play areas ≤400m 2 versus >400m 2 [20,61,62]. Two studies used smaller sizes of outdoor play areas as reference thresholds for comparison: ≤200m 2 versus 900m 2 and > 2700 m 2 [64], and < 386 m 2 versus ≥386m 2 [26].…”

Role of Spanish Toddlers’ Education and Care Institutions in Achieving Physical Activity Recommendations in the COVID-19 Era: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…According to the descriptive data collected in the present study, even though some schools had a larger playground and a (non-significantly) lower density per square meter, children in different schools had similar levels of PA and SB. The dimensions of the playground environment showed that ECEC centres, with an outdoor environment measuring at least 400 m 2 , are associated with a 22% greater likelihood of meeting PA recommendations than schools with smaller playgrounds [ 30 ]; however, no ECEC institution involved in the current study had such a large playground. Research has shown that the pandemic has negatively impacted social patterns in children who typically engage with peers at school or through PA [ 36 ].…”

“…As young children spend a high percentage of time in ECEC institutions, and these settings have an important role in promoting healthy habits [ 26 ]; it is essential to understand how ECEC environmental and individual factors influence toddlers’ movement behaviours. Environmental factors can include program structure [ 27 ], characteristics of the indoor environment (such as the ‘modified open-plan space’) [ 28 ], the presence of fixed and portable equipment [ 29 ], modifiable practices (such as routines), increased time spent in outdoor environments, and certain features of the outdoor environment [ 30 ]. Individual factors encompass the child care educator modelling or the co-participation of sedentary time and PA [ 31 ].…”

“…A recent systematic review [ 39 ] found that PA estimates are inconclusive and largely heterogeneous and, despite the fact that toddlers tend to exceed the TPA recommendation of 180 min/day, very little of this time is spent at higher movement intensities. Furthermore, although the ECEC context is an important setting for PA promotion, relatively few studies focus on toddlers’ PA and SB in ECEC hours [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 ]. Therefore, the aims of this study were two-fold: (a) to analyse toddlers’ PA levels and SB during school hours in ECEC institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the rate of adherence to specific recommendations on TPA and MVPA; and (b) to evaluate the child’s characteristics correlates (child’s age, gender, and BMI) of young children and the school environment on toddlers’ TPA, light PA (LPA), MVPA, and SB during school hours in ECEC institutions.…”