Playability of school-environments and after-school physical activity among 8–11 year-old children: specificity of time and place

Abstract

BackgroundPhysical Activity (PA) occurs in several behavioral domains (e.g., sports, active transport), and is affected by distinct environmental factors. By filtering objective PA using children’s school schedules, daily PA can be separated into more conceptually meaningful domains. We used an ecological design to investigate associations between “playability” of 21 school-environments and children’s objectively measured after-school PA. We also examined to what extent distinct time-periods after-school and the distance from children’s residence to their school influenced this association.MethodsPA was measured in 587 8–11 year-old children by accelerometers, and separated in four two-hour time-periods after-school. For each school-environment, standardized playability-scores were calculated based on standardized audits within 800 m network buffers around each school. Schools and children’s residences were geocoded, and we classified each child to be residing in 400, 800, 1600, or >1600 m crow-fly buffers from their school. The influence of network-distance buffers was also examined using the same approach.ResultsPlayability was associated with light PA and moderate-to-vigorous PA after-school, especially in the time-period directly after-school and among children who lived within 800 m from their school. Playability explained approximately 30 % of the after-school PA variance between schools. Greater distance from children’s residence to their school weakened the association between playability of the school-environments and after-school PA.ConclusionsThis study demonstrated that relationships between the conceptually matched physical environment and PA can be revealed and made plausible with increasing specificity in time and distance.

School and community physical activity characteristics and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity among Chinese school-aged children: A multilevel path model analysis

“…Accordingly, there is an increased interest in understanding contextual factors or correlates that contribute to levels of PA participation in these environmental settings so that appropriate school- and after-school-based interventions to increase PA for children and adolescents can be developed. 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 …”

Critical Hours and Important Environments: Relationships between Afterschool Physical Activity and the Physical Environment Using GPS, GIS and Accelerometers in 10–12-Year-Old Children

“…Second, during the afterschool period children are exposed to diverse attributes of the physical environment which may have an influence on children’s PA [29,30]. Hence, various studies have investigated attributes that foster afterschool PA. To date, six studies have investigated relationships between afterschool PA and the physical environment using objective measures of PA [22,25,28,31,32,33]. Four studies solely investigated environmental features around the residential neighborhood [22,25,31,33].…”

“…Consequently, the second challenge is to analyze children’s PA in relation to so-called daily activity spaces (e.g., including school, residence and daily transport route as spatial anchor points) may be especially suited for investigating associations with PA during the afterschool time period [35,36]. Third, although investigating afterschool PA separately from total daily PA is an important first step in examining context-specific determinants of PA [32], the afterschool period still consists of multiple distinct “activity types” (e.g., active transport, organized sports participation and leisure time PA) [24]. The ability to differentiate between several activity types is essential, as the influence of potential (environmental) determinants depend on these activity types [9].…”

Quality of Life: The Interplay between Human Behaviour, Technology and the Environment

“…For example, the built environment correlates of children's walking and cycling behaviour differ by commuting mode (walking versus cycling) and purpose (such as recreation and transportation) [30]. The relationship also differs per time-segment of the day [31,32]. Overall, this special issue has added to the knowledge base on the interaction between human behaviour and the environment.…”