Many children in the U.S. attend center-based preschools. Given recent trends in childhood obesity, preschools could be an important setting for interventions. In this study, the purpose of Brown and colleagues was to investigate children's physical activity in preschools to determine which conditions supported different physical activity levels during outdoor play.
Researchers observed over 450 3- to 5-year-old children from 24 different preschools (commercial child-care centers, church-affiliated preschools, or Head Start programs) in a metropolitan area of South Carolina. Brown and colleagues recorded children's physical activity behaviors and the social and nonsocial environmental factors related to those behaviors (e.g., group composition and indoor and outdoor activity contexts). In analyzing the data, researchers found many interesting results, including the following:
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