The Role of the Physical Environment in Promoting Physical Activity in Children Across Different Group Compositions

Abstract

Physical activity is an important health-related behavior, but the environmental variables that promote or abate it are not well understood. The purpose of this study was to conduct a functional analysis evaluating the effect of the physical environment on moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) in preschool children, and to evaluate the utility of the methodology across different group compositions. The Observational System for Recording Physical Activity in Children was used to define the test conditions and the measures of physical activity for eight preschool children. The functional analysis was implemented according to a multi-element experimental design. The highest levels of MVPA were observed when fixed playground equipment was available and at least one peer was present. Moreover, differential responding was observed across group compositions. The implications of this methodology and these findings on the development of interventions to increase MVPA are discussed.

Adult attention and interaction can increase moderate‐to‐vigorous physical activity in young children

“…In a subsequent study, Larson, Normand, Morley, and Miller () conducted a brief intervention analysis to determine whether MVPA would occur at the same level observed in the FA if the relevant condition was used as an intervention. The results of Larson et al () were consistent with those of Larson et al () in that the highest level of MVPA occurred in the interactive play condition, followed by the attention condition, for all participants.…”

“…There is growing evidence that the social environment can influence activity levels (e.g., Larson, Normand, Morley, & Hustyi, ; Larson, Normand, Morley, & Miller, ; Larson, Normand, Morley, & Miller, ; McKenzie, Crespo, Baquero, & Elder, ; Morrissey, Wenthe, Letuchy, Levy, & Janz, ; cf. Hastmann, Foster, Rosenkranz, Rosenkranz, & Dzewaltowski, 2012), suggesting that well‐established strategies for developing function‐based interventions might be applied to the problem of physical inactivity.…”

“…However, these recommendations specify only the general physical environment and do not specify when or how caregivers should become involved. Recent research suggests that simply providing access to play areas and relevant activities is not sufficient to increase physical activity (Hustyi, Normand, Larson, & Morley, ; Larson, Normand, Morley, & Hustyi, ). Moreover, relatively little research exploring parental participation in children's physical activity has been reported (Davison, Cutting, & Birch, ; cf.…”

The impacts of unstructured nature play on health in early childhood development: A systematic review

“…There were several methodological concerns amongst the included studies. The main concerns were: sample size not being described in detail (only eight studies Systematic review of nature play and child health described their sample [73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80]; the lack of sample size justification (only three studies did this [73,74,81]; lack of reliability and validity of outcome measures [ten studies reported on reliability [73-76, 78, 79, 81-84] and seven reported on validity [73-76, 81, 82, 84]; and finally the lack of reporting dropouts, with only six studies reporting dropout rates [5,74,75,81,83,84].…”

Context influences preference for and level of physical activity of adolescents with intellectual and developmental disabilities

“…The authors found that the fixed‐activity condition produced the most moderate‐to‐vigorous physical activity (MVPA) for all participants, and that this type of assessment could be used to identify the effects of different antecedent manipulations on the physical activity of children. Larson, Normand, Morley, and Hustyi () found that a fixed‐activity condition combined with the presence of a peer produced the most MVPA for all participants, and that different environmental compositions resulted in differential responding observed across conditions. Larson, Normand, Morley, and Miller (, ) extended this line of work by conducting a functional analysis of MVPA with typically developing preschool children.…”