Heart rate, energy expenditure, and affective responses from children participating in trampoline park sessions compared with traditional extra-curricular sports clubs

Abstract

Heart rate, energy expenditure, and affective responses from children participating in trampoline park sessions compared with traditional extra-curricular sports clubs. SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS Lack of physical activity is widely becoming a concern in younger populations. Inactivity has negative associations with quality of life, in addition to children's academic, social, and physical skills. Further, it may predispose them to poorer health later in life. For most children physical education and extracurricular activities delivered through school are the most apparent opportunities for engagement in physical activity.  However, opportunities for physical activity exist outside of the school environment per se and a place that has seen an increase in popularity in recent years are trampoline parks. The emotional state (feelings) of a child during physical activity is thought to be related to their enjoyment and potentially adherence. Trampoline parks are typically thought of as being exciting adventure based activity and so it was of interest to examine both the heart rate and energy expenditure, in addition to affect, of children taking part in both extracurricular sports (football and netball) compared to a trampoline park session. A group of 26 children (aged 6-11 years, 16 girls and 10 boys) took part in the study.They wore heart rate belts during the activities and gave a rating of their feelings after them too. Data was collected from 3 sessions of both extracurricular sports in addition to trampoline park sessions. The results showed heart rate and energy expenditure were higher during trampoline park sessions, though both activities were classed as moderate-vigorous physical activity. Further, both activities elicited feelings of 'excitement'. Both extracurricular sports clubs and trampoline parks may be viable options for children to engage in physical activity that is sufficiently 'intense' and related to positive feelings. SCIENTIFIC ABSTRACTBackground: Lack of physical activity (PA) is becoming an issue in younger populations. Trampoline parks are newly popular environments for PA yet research on their use is scarce. Thus the present study compared heart rate, energy expenditure, and affective responses in children participating in trampoline park sessions compared with extracurricular sports clubs. Methods: Children (aged 6-11 years; n = 16 females, n = 10 males) participated in 3 trampoline park sessions and 3 extracurricular sports club sessions lasting ~45 minutes over 3 weeks. Heart rate, energy expenditure, and affective responses through the circumplex model, were measured. Results: Both conditions elicited moderate-vigorous PA. Average heart rate (mean difference [95%CIs] = 27.6 fc [23.5 to 31.8]), peak heart rate (mean difference [95%CIs] = 24.2 fc [20.8 to 27.6]) and energy expenditure (mean difference [95%CIs] = 3.2 kcals.min -1 [2.7 to 3.6]) were all significantly higher for the trampoline sessions. Affective responses for both conditions elicited feelings of 'excitement'. Conclusio...

Influence of Public Health England’s Change4Life Disney Branded 10-minute Shake Ups on Children’s Post Activity Affective Response

“…Of this nine were in Key Stage 1 (KS1) (average age 6 years ± 1.1) and 23 were in Key Stage 2 (KS2) (average age = 9.3 ± 1.1). Therefore, though we were confident that our sample size was sufficient to identify effect sizes at least as large as those previously "observed" in "novel" PA in ecologically valid settings (Budzynski-Seymour et al, 2019), it was likely insufficient to observe smaller "conservative" effects based on those seen in the use of character branding in dietary behaviours (Keller et al, 2012).…”

“…The target sample size was 40-80 participants completing four activities for each condition (branded vs non-branded) based upon power curves from simulation. Sample size estimation was based upon data in a previous study (Budzynski-Seymour et al, 2019). Full details are available in the pre-registration.…”

“…Briefly, we consider the previously reported effects for both the Children's Feeling Scale (CFS) and Children's Felt Arousal Scale (CFAS) in prior research examining "novel" trampoline PA session to traditional extracurricular sport, in addition to previously reported effects of character branding on dietary behaviour (Keller et al, 2012). We considered both "observed" PA effects (based upon effects favouring "novel" trampoline activities in Budzynski-Seymour et al, 2019), and "conservative" effect sizes (half the "observed" effects reported previously due to the observation of smaller effects in Keller et al, 2012). Accounting for multiple comparison corrections (α = 0.017 across three dependent variables in the present study) we extended prior data from 3 to 8 observations and simulated power across both sets of effect sizes giving us ranges of participant numbers needed at the required power (≥ 80).…”

“…Of particular interest to engaging children in PA is the way that it is promoted, and thus the use of advertising, public relations, media advocacy and entertainment vehicles (Weinreich 2006). Often to promote a healthy behaviour to children, characters are used; indeed, reviews have identified this as an effective strategy to both promote PA and healthy nutrition (Budzynski-Seymour et al, 2019). Research has found that characters attract children's attention, improve product recognition, and create positive brand attitudes (Letona et al, 2014).…”

A citizen science study of short physical activity breaks at school: improvements in cognition and wellbeing with self-paced activity

“…Single-item measures have acceptable validity [23], and this adapted version has been used widely with children (e.g. [24,25]).…”