Physical environmental opportunities for active play and physical activity level in preschoolers: a multicriteria analysis

BMC Public Health

Amanda Cristina Fernandes¹  Ângela Alves Viegas¹  Juliana Nogueira Pontes Nobre¹  Ana Cristina Resende Camargos²  Henrique Silveira Costa³  Rosane Luzia De Souza Morais³  Pedro Henrique Scheidt Figueiredo³  Vanessa Amaral Mendonça³  Ana Cristina Rodrigues Lacerda³  Marcus Alessandro de Alcantara³  Bernat Viñola Prat⁴ 

[1] Centro Integrado de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Saúde (CIPq-Saúde), Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri (UFVJM), Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brazil;Faculdade de Fisioterapia, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Brazil;Faculdade de Fisioterapia, Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri (UFVJM), Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brazil;Instituto de Ciência e Tecnologia (ICT - UFVJM) e SaSA, Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri (UFVJM), Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brazil;

关键词: Outdoor activities;    Active play;    Environmental;    Outdoor recreation;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12889-022-12750-8

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundActive play opportunities seems to influence the level of physical activity during childhood. However, a gap remains about which environmental opportunities including the daycare physical environment could have a positive impact on the level of physical activity in preschoolers.Objectives(1) To develop an index to measure the environmental opportunities of free active play for preschoolers of middle-income countries; (2) to check the relationship and contribution of the index to explain objectively the level of physical activity.MethodsA quantitative, cross-sectional, exploratory study with 51 preschool children. The established criteria for the index according to the literature were: (1) Outdoor time on typical days of the week. (2) Outdoor time on a typical weekend day. (3) The presence of internal space and external environment in the child’s home that allows playing. (4) Presence of patio with space for games at the school. (5) Presence of a playground with a toy at the school. We applied multi-attribute utility theory for the determination of the multicriteria index of physical environmental opportunities. Pearson’s correlation analysis and simple linear regression were used to verify the association between the index and the physical activity level.ResultsThe index showed a positive correlation with the level of physical activity, e.g., the average time of MVPA (r = 0.408, p = 0.003). The univariate linear regression demonstrated that the quality of physical environmental opportunities for physical activity explained 20% of the preschooler’s classification as active and 16% of the time in moderate to vigorous physical activity (p < 0.001).ConclusionPhysical environmental opportunities for active play have a positive effect on physical activity in preschoolers and should be encouraged in different social segments.

【 授权许可】

CC BY