Social and Environmental Factors Associated With Preschoolers’ Nonsedentary Physical Activity

Abstract

The two-fold purpose of the investigation was (1) to describe with direct observation data the physical activity behaviors and the accompanying social and environmental events of those behaviors for children in preschools; and (2) to determine which contextual conditions were predictors of moderateto-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and non-sedentary physical activity (i.e., light activity + MVPA) for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children during their outdoor play. The results indicate that preschoolers' physical activity is characterized as sedentary in nature throughout their preschool day (i.e., 89% sedentary, 8% light activity, 3% MVPA). During outdoor play periods, when children are most likely to be physically active, some contextual and social circumstances better predict their physical activity. Implications for policymakers, practitioners, and researchers are discussed.Keywords preschool children; physical activity; physical inactivity; childhood overweight and obesity; direct observation methods Recently, the childhood obesity rate has increased considerably in the United States, and many children are becoming overweight at younger ages. Ogden and colleagues (2006) reported that the prevalence rate of at risk for overweight (i.e., ≥ 85 th percentile) among two-to five-yearold children in the U. S. was 26.2% and during the last five years the rate increased by 4.2%. Within the United States, some populations, such as African American, Hispanic, and lowincome children, have had even higher prevalence rates for childhood weight difficulties (e.g., Haas et al., 2003;Sherry, Mei, Scanlon, Mokdad, & Grummer-Strawn, 2004 NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptChild Dev. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2010 January 1. Published in final edited form as:Child Dev. 2009 ; 80(1): 45-58. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01245.x. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptSirard, Dowda, Pfeiffer, and Pate (2003) noted that early incidence of being overweight might inhibit young children's physical activity, negatively affecting their future weight status. Finally, Guo, Wu, Chumlea, and Roche (2002) and Baker, Olsen, and Sorensen (2007) reported children's early overweight problems predict adult obesity and significant health problems.The causal nexus between obesity and severe health problems is multifaceted and any connection may be confounded by the fact that both health problems and obesity have been associated with poor diet and lack of exercise. Nevertheless, obesity has been clearly associated with multiple health difficulties, most notably, coronary heart disease, hypertension, type II diabetes, osteoporosis, and some types of cancer (e.g., Blair & Brodney, 1999;Must et al., 1999). Many public health researchers have hypothesized that obesity is related to contemporary diets and physical inactivity (e.g., Biglan, 2004;Troiano & Flegal, 1998). Specifically, modern diets have increased caloric intake, particularly calories with saturated and trans fats and sugars, and the physical...

Physical Activity of Preschool Children: A Review

“…Most of the time the children are inactive, predominantly SB, in all studies, with an MVPA around Week for 1 hour [12]. The time observed within the preschool was 87%, with a predominance of SB, 10% of the time was observed outside the classroom and the transition from outdoors to internal it was 3% [13]. The proportion of MVPA was 4% for children of 3 years old and 3.3% between 4-5 years old [10].…”

“…For activity in specific environments children spend more time indoors, averaging 323 ± 114 min/day versus 149 ± 115 min/day outdoors. In contrast, are more active in outdoors [13,15].…”

“…To measure the physical activity of preschool children, five studies used the OSRAC-P (Observational System for Recording Physical Activity in Children-Preschool) as direct observation instrument [9,5,[13][14][15]. The accelerometer of ActiGraph mark GT1M was used in a study as the single instrument [3], and in two other studies combined with the use of pedometers Yamax SW-200 [10] and direct observation [14,15].…”

“…The percentage spent in MVPA and sedentary time on, tended to decrease while the time LMPA tended to increase in older children [9,10,5,13]. One factor to consider for older children have lower MVPA values is the greatest time in the classroom, in educational activities that younger [5].…”

“…Other studies used direct observation as a tool both for evaluation of physical activity of children and for the environment [9,5,13,15].…”