No Association Between Active Commuting to School, Adiposity, Fitness, and Cognition in Spanish Children: The MOVI‐KIDS Study

Abstract

BACKGROUND Walking and bicycling (active commuting) to school may be a useful strategy to increase the daily amount of physical activity, and, potentially, improve children's health. However, it is unclear whether active commuting to school (ACS) has the potential to improve physical health and cognitive performance in children. Our aim was to examine the relationship between ACS with adiposity indicators, physical fitness, and cognitive performance in 4‐ to 7‐year‐old children. METHODS We conducted a cross‐sectional study with 1159 children from the provinces of Cuenca and Ciudad Real, Spain. ACS was self‐reported by parents. Adiposity (body mass index, waist circumference, body fat mass, and triceps skinfold thickness) and physical fitness (cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness) were measured by standard procedures. Cognitive performance was assessed using the Battery of General and Differential Aptitudes. Data analysis included analysis of covariance. RESULTS We found no differences in adiposity, physical fitness, and cognitive performance between active commuters and nonactive commuters. CONCLUSIONS Walking to school had no positive impact on adiposity, physical fitness, and cognition in 4‐ to 7‐year‐old children. Future studies should examine the intensity and duration of walking to school needed to provide benefits in health and cognitive performance.

Active Commute in Relation to Cognition and Academic Achievement in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Future Recommendations

“…All of the studies had approximately 50.00% girls as a part of their sample, with the lowest and the highest percentage being 42.47% [44] and 53.26% [42], respectively. Most of the studies (n = 10) were cross-sectional studies [42,[45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53], and two were prospective studies [43,44]. Eight studies accounted for socioeconomic status either by asking their socioeconomic status or by using parental education as a proxy for it.…”

“…All studies measured active commuting in the context of commuting to school; either to, from or both. Seven studies [43,45,[48][49][50][51][52] reported the percentage of their sample that engaged in active commuting, and it ranged from 12.00% to 70.41%.…”

“…All other studies used self-report methods. Out of these, two studies asked parents of the participants to report their children's mode and duration of commuting to and from school [43,52]. The rest of the studies had participants self-report their own commuting activity.…”

“…Overall, there seemed to be a lack of consensus whether ACS would constitute one-way or round-trip active commuting. Approximately half of the studies (seven) asked about engaging in active commuting only while going to the school [42,43,45,47,48,52,53], in which one of the studies doubled the duration reported, to account for the round trip [47]. The remaining five studies measured active commuting both to and from school [44,46,[49][50][51].…”

“…The remaining five studies measured active commuting both to and from school [44,46,[49][50][51]. Out of 12 studies, only six studies tried to assess the dose of ACS, albeit only in terms of duration [43,45,47,50,52,53], whereas the other studies measured it as a binary variable. There was variation in the way duration was categorized, with three studies categorizing it as <15 min or >15 min [45,52,53], one study categorizing it as <30 min, 30-60 min, and >60 min [50], one study using cut off points as <25 min, 25-50 min and >50 min [43], while one measured it as a continuous variable [45].…”