Does SuperPark Make Children Less Sedentary? How Visiting a Commercial Indoor Activity Park Affects 7 to 12 Years Old Children’s Daily Sitting and Physical Activity Time

Arto J. Pesola, Martti Melin, Anssi Vanhala, Ying Gao and Taija Finni
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Arto J. Pesola: Active Life Lab, South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences, FI-50101 Mikkeli, Finland
Martti Melin: Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, FI-40014 Jyväskylä, Finland
Anssi Vanhala: Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, FI-40014 Jyväskylä, Finland
Ying Gao: Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, FI-40014 Jyväskylä, Finland
Taija Finni: Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, FI-40014 Jyväskylä, Finland

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 8, 1-10

Abstract: Commercial indoor activity parks provide children with a variety of entertaining physical activities. This study examined whether visiting SuperPark affects total daily sitting and physical activity time. The participants (8 girls and 7 boys, aged 10.3 ± 1.9 years, height 144.5 ± 11.8 cm, body mass index (BMI) 19.3 ± 3.0 kg/m 2 ) wore a thigh-worn accelerometer during a normal week and were provided free tickets to visit SuperPark on at least one day. On average, the children spent 3.3 ± 1.2 h in SuperPark. During the visits the children had 0.9 h less sitting (0.7 ± 0.3 h, p = 0.000) and 0.9 h more moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA; 1.4 ± 0.6 h, p = 0.002) as compared to the reference periods on days without a SuperPark visit (1.6 ± 0.3 h sitting and 0.5 ± 0.4 h MVPA). During the days when visiting SuperPark, sitting time decreased 1.0 h (5.8 ± 0.9 h, p = 0.008) and MVPA increased 0.8 h (3.0 ± 1.0 h, p = 0.017) as compared to the reference days (6.8 ± 1.1 h sitting and 2.2 ± 0.8 h MVPA). The effects were more pronounced during weekdays than weekends. The children spent more than three hours in SuperPark on one visit, of which almost a half was MVPA. During the whole day, one hour of sitting was replaced with MVPA, suggesting that visiting SuperPark has the potential to improve health. Whether children continue visiting SuperPark and gain health benefits merits investigation.

Keywords: sitting; moderate-to-vigorous physical activity; indoor activity park; children; accelerometer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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