Measuring Temporal Differences in Rural Canadian Children’s Moderate-to-Vigorous Physical Activity

Brenton L. G. Button, Andrew F. Clark, Gina Martin, Megan Graat and Jason A. Gilliland
Additional contact information
Brenton L. G. Button: Human Environments Analysis Laboratory, Western University, London, ON N6A 3K7, Canada
Andrew F. Clark: Human Environments Analysis Laboratory, Western University, London, ON N6A 3K7, Canada
Gina Martin: Human Environments Analysis Laboratory, Western University, London, ON N6A 3K7, Canada
Megan Graat: Human Environments Analysis Laboratory, Western University, London, ON N6A 3K7, Canada
Jason A. Gilliland: Human Environments Analysis Laboratory, Western University, London, ON N6A 3K7, Canada

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 23, 1-14

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to measure the factors that influence children’s moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) during school curriculum time, recess time, and outside school time in a rural area. During the Fall and Winter of 2016, 34 boys and 55 girls aged 8–14 years from rural communities in rural Northwestern Ontario participated in the Spatial Temporal Environment and Activity Monitoring project. The children’s MVPA was measured using an accelerometer, and child-level demographic, behavioral, and environmental data were gathered from surveys, passively logging global positioning units, and municipal datasets. Data on daily temperature and precipitation were gathered from the closest Environment Canada weather station. A mixed model was used to assess the relationship between child- and day-level factors and children’s MVPA. On average, children were getting 12.9 min of MVPA during recess, 17.7 min during curriculum time, and 29.0 min of MVPA outside school time. During all three time points, boys were more active than girls. During curriculum time, children in lower grades were more active, and the weather had differing impacts depending on the time of day. The findings of this study illustrate the differences in MVPA and the factors that influence MVPA by time of day. Examining different time segments provides valuable information for understanding children’s MVPA patterns.

Keywords: rural population; physical activity; children; temporal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/23/8734/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/23/8734/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:23:p:8734-:d:450442

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().