1. Investigating elementary school children’s daily physical activity and sedentary behaviours during weekdays.
- Author
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Gao, Zan, Chen, Senlin, Huang, Charles C., Stodden, David F., and Xiang, Ping
- Subjects
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ANALYSIS of covariance , *CONFIDENCE intervals , *ELEMENTARY schools , *LONGITUDINAL method , *PHYSICAL education , *PROBABILITY theory , *RESEARCH funding , *STATISTICS , *T-test (Statistics) , *TIME , *DATA analysis , *ACCELEROMETRY , *REPEATED measures design , *EXERCISE intensity , *SEDENTARY lifestyles , *PHYSICAL activity , *DATA analysis software , *DESCRIPTIVE statistics , *EXERCISE video games - Abstract
The purpose of the study was to quantify the contributions of physical education, exergaming (active video games that also are a type of exercise), recess, lunch break and after-school time segments to children’s daily physical activity and sedentary behaviours. Participants were 138 second and third graders (71 girls) who attended 20-min recess and 75-min lunch time daily, 25-min regular physical education or exergaming-based classes being alternated daily. The after-school period was defined as 3:20–10:00pm. Physical activity was assessed via accelerometry and the dependent variables were children’s time spent in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), light physical activity and sedentary behaviour. Children’s percentages of time spent in MVPA (P < .001; except for the difference between exergaming and lunch break:P = .63), light physical activity (P < .001) and sedentary behaviour (P < .001) differed significantly across the time segments (i.e., physical education/exergaming, recess, lunch break and after-school). Additionally, children accumulated significantly more MVPA (t = 10.22,P < .001) but less light physical activity (t = −3.17,P = .002) and sedentary behaviour (t = −3.91,P < .001) in physical education than in exergaming. Overall, physical education was more effective in generating MVPA than other segments over the school day. The after-school segment holds potential as an avenue for promoting children’s MVPA, as this long period could be better utilised to organise structured physical activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2017
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