Effects of Children's Outdoor Physical Activity in the Urban Neighborhood Activity Space Environment

Abstract

The rapid development of cities results in many public health and built-up environmental problems, which have vital impacts on children's growth environment, the development of children, and city contradictions. There is a lack of children being a main concern when constructing new urban areas or reconstructing old districts. Children's activity spaces tend to be standardized and unified (kit, fence, and carpet) “KFC style” designs, which leads to the urban neighborhood space and the environment being insufficient to attract children to conduct activities. Therefore, starting from the urban neighborhood space environment, this paper explores what kind of spatial environment is needed for children's physical activity and its impact on children's physical activity. Taking six residential areas in the Changchun Economic Development Zone as the research object, based on the theory of children's ability development and game value, this paper uses the Woolley and Lowe evaluation tool to quantify the impact of the theory on the urban neighborhood space environment and children's physical activity. It can be confirmed that there is a significant correlation between the spatial characteristics of an urban neighborhood and the general signs of the environment on the duration and intensity of the physical activity of children. The results show that: (1) the differences in children's ages result in differences in the duration and intensity of children's physical activity in the urban neighborhood space environment; (2) the open space factor of the neighborhood space has the most significant influence on the duration of children's physical activity; (3) in terms of the environmental characteristics, whether children can be provided with education and learning opportunities has a significant impact on the duration of children's physical activity; (4) there is a significant positive correlation between children's age and the duration and intensity of the physical activity, exercise type, and imaginative activity. These results show that the urban neighborhood space environment can affect the duration of children's physical activity. In future urban residential area planning and design, urban children can meet the self-demand of physical activity in the neighborhood space through the reasonable balance and combination of neighborhood space characteristics and environmental characteristics.

The influence of outdoor play spaces in urban parks on children's social anxiety

“…In our study, based on child psychologist Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development ( 54 ) and our previous research protocols ( 55 ), children were divided into three age groups: 4–7 years, 8–11 years, and 12–15 years. The field investigations were carried out on the site of children's play activities in urban green spaces.…”

The Relationship Between Spatial Configuration of Residential Quarters and Children’s Outdoor Activity

“…In the last few years, the number of studies exploring the impact of environmental factors on children's physical activity has grown rapidly. In a recent study, Bao et al (2021) investigated the physical activities of children in neighborhood space, more specifically, they were interested in the influence of the urban neighbourhood space on the duration of physical activity. In a similar context, Sallis, Prochaska & Taylor (2000), Popkin, Duffey & Gordon-Larsen (2005), Davison & Lawson (2006), highlighted factors such as accessibility, safety and area deprivation to be important influence factors for play activity.…”

“…However, outdoor open spaces are recognized as highly important to children's development (Jansson, 2010;Carson & Predy, 2019), they are especially associated with children in terms of outdoor play as a fundamental part of their daily life (Bao et al, 2021). According to Bagattini (2019), children are the most vulnerable social group, they are also the most present category in public open spaces within the residential neighborhoods.…”

Comparative Review of Environmental Audit Tools for Public Open Spaces from the Perspective of Children’s Activity

“…These studies included both the introduction of the given tools’ development and the tools’ applications. The tools identified were: the Environmental Assessment of Public Recreation Spaces (EAPRS) [ 17 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ]; the Children’s Public Open Space Tool (C-POST) [ 30 , 31 ]; the Community Park Audit Tool (CPAT) [ 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ]; the Physical Activity Resource Assessment (PARA, adapted version) [ 39 ]; the Resilience for Eating and Physical Activity Despite Inequality (READI) park audit tool [ 40 ]; the Woolley and Lowe’s play space assessment tool [ 41 , 42 ]; the Parks, Activity and Recreation among Kids (PARK) tool [ 43 , 44 , 45 ]; the Playable Space Quality Assessment Tool (PSQAT) [ 46 ]; the QUality INdex of Parks for Youth (QUINPY) [ 47 ]; the Opportunities for Children in Urban Spaces (OCUS) [ 48 ]; and the Play Space Audit Tool (PSAT) [ 49 ]. Among these, the EAPRS tool does not primarily target children but does include detailed index items and has been used or adapted in multiple studies evaluating children’s playgrounds.…”