Sociodemographic Predictors of Adherence to National Diet and Physical Activity Guidelines at Age 5 Years: The Healthy Start Study

Abstract

Purpose: To assess adherence to the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines, and identify sociodemographic predictors of adherence among children. Design: Cross sectional. Setting: Colorado, United States. Participants: Children aged 5 (n = 482). Measures: Sex, race/ethnicity, maternal education, maternal employment, maternal subjective social status and household income were assessed via questionnaires. Diet was assessed via 2 interviewer-administered 24-hour dietary recalls. Physical activity was objectively-measured with accelerometry for 7 days. Adherence was defined as a Healthy Eating Index-2015 score of ≥70 and/or ≥6 hours/day of light, moderate and vigorous activity. Analysis: For each predictor, logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios for adherence to the diet guidelines only, the activity guidelines only or both guidelines. Results: In the full sample, 29% of children were non-adherent to both guidelines, 6% adhered to the dietary guidelines only, 50% adhered to the activity guidelines only and 14% adhered to both. Girls had a 41% lower odds of adhering to the physical activity guidelines than boys (p = 0.01), after adjustment for race/ethnicity, household income and maternal education level, perceived social status and employment status. Conclusion: Efforts to improve the health of young children should promote adherence to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans among all children. Targeted interventions that increase physical activity among girls may help to mitigate health disparities.

Adherence to index-based dietary patterns in childhood and BMI trajectory during the transition to adolescence: the EPOCH study

“…Sex differences in the association between HEI-2010 and BMI in the present study could reflect sex differences in the role of diet on BMI trajectory. Diet may be a stronger determinant of BMI among girls, while physical activity, which is higher overall among male than female youth 56 , 57 , may be a more important determinant of BMI among boys. Future studies that include measures of diet and physical activity could disentangle the relative effects of each lifestyle behavior by sex.…”

Kinesiology, Physical Activity, Physical Education, and Sports through an Equity/Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Lens: A Scoping Review

“…Regular physical activity is an important aspect in healthy living [131]; however, many "cities lack built environments that support physical activity" [132] (p. 1475). This is problematic because physical activity is a key indicator of health [132] and health equity [133]. Furthermore, socio-demographics influence whether one engages in physical activity [133].…”

“…This is problematic because physical activity is a key indicator of health [132] and health equity [133]. Furthermore, socio-demographics influence whether one engages in physical activity [133]. For example, girls follow physical activity guidelines less than boys [133,134], and factors such as "race/ethnicity, household income, maternal education level, and perceived social status" [133] (p. 514) impact ones engagement in physical activities.…”

“…Furthermore, socio-demographics influence whether one engages in physical activity [133]. For example, girls follow physical activity guidelines less than boys [133,134], and factors such as "race/ethnicity, household income, maternal education level, and perceived social status" [133] (p. 514) impact ones engagement in physical activities. With that, it is argued that a gender-neutral narrative, when addressing physical activity, is needed, and barriers originating with the social environment of a person have to be tackled [135].…”

“…Then the problems and actions flagged as needed in the academic literature covering sport, physical education, physical activity, and kinesiology, as well as the individual EDI terms, are reasons, by themselves, that there could (and should) be more academic engagement of sport, physical education, physical activity, and kinesiology with the EDI phrases and frameworks, in order to generate data on how to make them useful. The existing literature suggests the possibilities of interdisciplinary collaborations on EDI between sports, physical education, physical activity, and kinesiology, as well as other academic fields, where problems of marginalized groups, in the context of sports, physical education, physical activity, and kinesiology, are noted, such as media studies [70][71][72], departments and programs that cover the global south [69], teacher education (including physical education teachers) [113,[118][119][120][121][144][145][146][147][149][150][151], and fields covering health, environmental design, and urban design [131][132][133][134][135]. EDI engagement by sports, physical education, physical activity, and kinesiology could be used to engage with many social problems in the community linked to sports, physical education, physical activity, and kinesiology, as well as problems flagged within university settings of sports, physical education, physical activity, and kinesiology, such as group cohesion [73,74], identity formation [75], need for changing curricula [88,96,97], need for diversifying students and faculty [97,98], and need for questioning oppressive discourses and privileges [152].…”