Parental education and perception of outdoor playing time for preschoolers

Abstract

-Aim:The objective of this study was to analyze whether or not socioeconomic positions influence outdoor playtime during the week (WK) and on the weekends (WEND). Methods: The sample consisted of 485 (girls; n=223) healthy preschoolers, aged from 3 to 6 years, enrolled in kindergartens from the metropolitan area of Porto, Portugal.Physical Activity (PA) was assessed for 7 consecutive days with an accelerometer. The time playing outdoors during the WK or the WEND was reported by parents. Anthropometric data (weight and height) was collected following standardized protocols. Socioeconomic position was assessed by Parental Education (PE), according to the Portuguese education system. Results: We found differences in time spent playing outdoors either for the WK or WEND, but not for Total PA (TPA), in both sexes. However, regression analysis showed that after age adjustment, BMI and TPA for both sexes, we only found significant associations between low PE (LPE) and high PE (HPE) groups on WK or WEND.However, we found no statistically significant association for boys on the WK (p=0.06). Conclusion: Our findings suggest that socioeconomic position can influence the children's time spent in outdoor activities, especially on the weekends. This may have implications for future interventions with this age group.

Active and sedentary behaviors in youth (6–14 years old): Data from the IAN-AF survey (2015–2016)

“…One of the few Portuguese studies on AOP showed that socioeconomic position can influence children's time spent in outdoor activities, especially on the weekends. 28 However, our data found no significant differences for parental education, as a proxy for socioeconomic status (SES).…”

Systematic review of the correlates of outdoor play and time among children aged 3-12 years

“…Confusion in terminology of outdoor play/time is well-noted in previous literature [20,151]. In our review, outdoor physical activity [35,39,47,63,65,67,77,86,103,113,119,152], outdoor activity, outdoor playtime [38,68,100,137], playground usage [30,108], active free play [122], outdoor active play [61] and in different settings (e.g., playground, on street, during recess) were observed in addition to outdoor play/time. Establishing clear definitions of outdoor play, outdoor time, and other relevant terms may not only reduce the confusion that exist in the field but may also advance the measurement of outdoor play and outdoor time.…”

“…In four studies school grade was reported (1st grade, n = 1; 5th grade, n = 2, prekindergarten to 6th grade, n = 1) [47,59,102,113,132]. The quality rating scores are presented in Supplementary Table 3 [39,51,57,62,70,71,74,83,99,100,103,107,108,114,130], of which one observation used both proxy-and selfreported data [102]. Ten studies used accelerometry or pedometry (i.e., device-based measures of physical activity that took place outdoors) [34,35,48,72,77,86…”

“…Briefly, parent being part of the dominant racial/ ethnic group [50,118], having the dominant nationality [130], parents holding positive attitude towards outdoors/outdoor activities [69,112,132], being informed about playing with child [130], ascribing importance to child's outdoor play [32], parental engagement in different types of physical activities [114,116,118,124,130] and modelling [61,110], parental habit strength [111], and parental support [61,67,92,102,110,111,122,129] were positively associated with outdoor play. On the other hand, having immigrated [74] or higher educated parents [32,33,37,38,100,118,132], having higher educated [44,59,92,96,124,127] or working mother [62,82,118], number of cars at home [132], having a mother with depression [62,68], hyper-parenting…”

Improving Motor Skills in Early Childhood through Goal-Oriented Play Activity

“…Playing provides an opportunity for children to adapt to others and the environment and impacts on their motor development, thinking ability, and the ability to solve problems [1]. There are still many parents who prioritize children's academic skills in reading and mathematics, because they assume that being good at reading and math means having more abilities [2]. This kind of assumption is based on the presumption that play is a waste of time.…”