Potential correlates and outcomes of active commuting to school among adolescents

Abstract

The present study analysed the prevalence, potential correlates and physical activity (PA), body mass index (BMI), and academic performance outcomes, of active commuting to and from school (ACS), considering the home-to-school distance. A total of 391 Portuguese adolescents (189 boys, aged 14-18 years) completed a questionnaire about their active and passive commuting behaviours; potential correlates and perceived barriers of ACS; PA, BMI and academic performance. Multinomial regressions analyses were performed for 'no walk/cycle', 'one-way commuters' and for 'both-ways commuters' living near (<2 miles) school. The prevalence of one-way and both-ways active commuters decreased as the distance to school increased to more than two miles (66.5% to 23.5%). For the 'near group', walking to (47.8%) and from (55.5%) school was much more common than cycling (< 1%). The barrier with the greatest effect for one-way and bothways active commuters was 'distance', followed by 'stuff to carry', 'don't enjoy walking/cycling'. No significant relations were found between walking or cycling one-way or both-ways and total PA, BMI and academic performance. To increase ACS, results suggest interventions promoting bicycling use and addressing multiple perceived barriers, such as 'PA and ACS attitudes', 'stuff to carry', perceptions of 'hot and sweaty' and 'distance'.

Active Commuting to and from School, Cognitive Performance, and Academic Achievement in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies

“…After removing 128 duplicates, 2086 were screened in detail based on the title and abstract. Finally, a total of 12 studies met the inclusion criteria [25,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50] (Figure 1).…”

“…The studies were published between 2011 and 2018; they were conducted in seven European countries [40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50] and one in Chile [25]. Ten studies were cross-sectional studies [25,40,41,42,43,45,46,47,49,50] and two were follow-up studies [44,48]. The sample sizes of the studies ranged from 186 to 10,380 participants, and the total sample included 23,516 children and adolescents aged 4 to 18 years.…”

“…The studies showed a wide range of indicators or definitions to determine patterns of commuting to and from school and used different categories for differentiating between active and passive travelers (Table 1). Overall, researchers included information regarding the mode of commuting to and from school [25,40,41,42,43,44,45,47,48,49,50], duration of ACS [25,40,42,44,45,46,48,49,50], number of active trips on a weekly basis [42] and distance between home to school [45]. Finally, the mode of ACS varied across studies: three studies [25,40,42] included only information regarding walkers; eight studies [41,44,45,46,47,48,49,50] combined walkers with cyclists and skaters in the analyses; and only one study [43] analyzed cyclists and walkers separately.…”

“…Eleven articles provided data regarding the academic achievement of students. In these studies, researchers included information on marks for the following subjects: Mathematics-related skills (mathematics, arithmetic and numeracy) [25,40,41,42,43,45,46,48,50], language-related skills (language, vocabulary and writing) [25,40,41,42,45,46,50], reading [48], English (as a foreign language) [41,46], physical education [42,45], natural sciences [41], social sciences [41] and overall academic achievement (as grade point average or general perception of academic achievement) [41,42,47,49].…”

“…Most studies reported models controlled for several covariates, showing a wide heterogeneity (Table 2 and Table 3). Seven studies included aged [40,41,42,43,45,48,50] and sex [25,41,43,44,45,46,48] of participants as a covariate in their analyses. While adiposity was included as a covariate in more than half of the studies [25,40,42,46,47,48,50], fitness was only included in two studies [40,48] and levels of PA of participants in three studies [25,46,50].…”