Introduction Spain has one of the highest rates of childhood overweight and obesity in Europe (1). The majority of Spanish children do not engage in enough physical activity (PA) to be beneficial for health (2, 3). Recommendations for healthy levels of PA for children have been established (4) but there is a need for ...
Introduction The PEACH project (Personal and Environmental Associations with Children’s Health: www.bris.ac.uk/enhs/peach) is a longitudinal study investigating the environmental and personal determinants of physical activity and eating behaviours in children across the transition from primary to secondary school. A cohort of 1307 final year primary ...
Introduction There is inconclusive evidence for a causal link between physical activity (PA) and health outcomes in preschool children. Despite the common perception from practitioners that preschool children are receiving sufficient PA, data suggest they do not meet the PA recommendations (O’Dwyer et al. 2011). It is important to increase ...
Background Limited information is available about changes over time in objectively measured daily physical activity in young children. This study evaluates if accelerometer-measured physical activity tracks or changes over two years. Methods Daily physical activity was assessed by the Actigraph accelerometer for four consecutive days in 167 children (boys n=90, girls ...
Introduction Physical activity is a major public health concern as trends show inadequate levels of physical activity for health and rising levels of obesity. A research priority is understanding key explanatory variables underpinning children’s physical activity participation. Despite this, there are few studies identifying “clusters” of children based on ...
Introduction There is concern that preschool children are not physically active enough to benefit health, yet few interventions have attempted to increase physical activity (PA) in this population. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a 6-week school based Active Play intervention on children’s moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) ...
The absence of comparative validity studies has prevented researchers from reaching consensus regarding the application of intensity-related accelerometer cut points for children and adolescents. Purpose This study aimed to evaluate the classification accuracy of five sets of independently developed ActiGraph cut points using energy expenditure, measured by indirect calorimetry, as ...
Accelerometers are considered to be the most promising tool for measuring physical activity (PA) in free-living young children. So far, no studies have examined the feasibility and validity of accelerometer measurements in children under 3 years of age. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to examine the feasibility and ...
Introduction It is important to understand the determinants of physical activity needed to influence policy and create environments that promote physical activity among preschool children. Physical activity levels were studied with the aims to compare outdoor and indoor activity and to analyze minutes spent in sedentary, light, moderate and vigorous ...
Introduction South Asian minority groups in the UK are at greater risk of heart disease and diabetes than the general White population. Physical activity plays an important role in the onset of these diseases. A recent study using accelerometers showed that girls had lower levels of physical activity than boys, ...