Effectiveness of a multicomponent intervention on the screen time of Brazilian adolescents: non-randomized controlled study

Abstract

The aim of this study was to verify the effectiveness of a multicomponent, school-based intervention in reducing screentime in adolescents according to sex. Methods: This is a non-randomized controlled intervention study focusing on cardiorespiratory fitness, body image, nutrition and physical activity. Screentime (television, computer/ video game) was the secondary outcome of the intervention and was addressed using educational strategies (folders, posters, educational sessions and group discussions). Screen time was measured using a structured questionnaire validated in Brazilian adolescents and the excess time spent on-screen was defined as two hours or more daily. The effect of the intervention was analyzed by the McNemar test and logistic regression. Results: Intervention effectively reduced the proportion of adolescents exposed to more than two hours a day of computer/videogame in males from 71.7% to 57.5% (p= 0.002) and excessive time of television in females from 81.5% to 72.6% (p = 0.024), from the beginning to the end of the study in the group receiving intervention. However, no effect of intervention was found in the comparison between intervention and control groups for computer/video game time (OR = 0.822; p = 0.504) and television time (OR = 0.667; p = 0.252). Conclusion: The intervention was not effective in reducing screen time in the comparison between intervention and control groups, but it reduced the screen time of adolescents in the intervention group.

The functional state of girls with high motor fitness in the conditions of digitalization

“…The results obtained are consistent with the research results provided by other authors who revealed a reverse relationship between physical activity and physical fitness in conformity with the total time of using digital technologies [7,[13][14][15][16]18].…”

“…Currently, there is an increasing number of scientific works concerned with the analysis of the relationship between the intensive use of digital technologies by children in everyday life and the functional state of the body [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12], physical activity and motor fitness [6,7,[13][14][15][16][17][18]. Despite the available data, there are some unsolved issues associated with assessing the impact of digital technologies on the health and functional state of children at various stages of ontogenesis with due regard to the development of motor abilities.…”

Scoping Review on Interventions for Physical Activity and Physical Literacy Components in Brazilian School-Aged Children and Adolescents

“…Interventions in both children and adolescents resulted in changes in the school environment; however, with children, interventions were focused on sports materials (ropes, ball, bows, cone, mat, tape and rubber bands, and track designed with colors) [56,59,66,68,76]. Interventions with adolescents focused on access to booklets, pamphlets, posters, banners, and exercise guides [19,20,[22][23][24][25][26][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][44][45][46][47][48][49]51,78]. Only adolescents had the opportunity to interact electronically with instructional SMS for PA practice with motivational messages about environmental changes and access to information on healthy eating habits and creation of an electronic diary of PA and food [20,[28][29][30][31][32][33][44][45][46][47][48][49]67].…”

“…Table 3 summarizes the PL investigated in the studies according to age group. The components most frequently evaluated in interventions were PA attributes [18][19][20][21][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]37,41,42,44,45,48,50,[52][53][54][56][57][58][59][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72]75,76] (30 studies; 71.4%). In general, children were evaluated in terms of fine and global motor skills, balance, body schema, and spatial and temporal organization [50,56,76,80].…”

“…In general, children were evaluated in terms of fine and global motor skills, balance, body schema, and spatial and temporal organization [50,56,76,80]. Muscle and cardiorespiratory endurance have been investigated more in adolescents [23][24][25][26]44,45,48,[52][53][54][70][71][72] than in children [27,57,66]. Flexibility, physical and cardiorespiratory fitness, agility, BMI, weight, and height were variables assessed in both age groups [18][19][20][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]41,42,62,[64][65][66][67]69,72].…”