Interaction between physical environment, social environment, and child characteristics in determining physical activity at child care

Child-care centers' social and physical environments influence children's physical activity levelsWith over half of European children attending some form of child-care, it is important to understand how these environments impact children's physical activity. The authors cite the increase in childhood overweight and obesity as one of the reasons that the study of childhood physical activity levels is important, given the evidence to indicate that sedentary behaviors are among the most important causes of overweight conditions in children. The major purpose of this study was to examine the influence of characteristics of children's physical and social environments, as well as some demographics, on children's intensity of physical activity.

In this study, Gubbels and colleagues examined the relationship between child-care center environments and children's physical activity by observing 175 2-to3-year-old children at 9 Dutch child-care centers. Researchers assessed children's physical activity intensity, the social environment (e.g., group size and physical activity prompts), and the physical environment (e.g., portable and fixed equipment).

In analyzing the data, Gubbels and colleagues found that the majority of children's activity was sedentary (59.4% of indoor activity and 31.2% of outdoor activity), however, children's physical activity levels were more intense outdoors, with 21.3% of activity being classified as moderate to vigorous as compared to 5.5% of activity indoors. With regard to the relationship between children's physical activity and social and physical environment factors, Gubbels and colleagues found that more activity opportunities in the physical environment (both indoors and outdoors) and physical activity prompts by staff (outdoors) and peers (indoors) were related to higher activity intensities, while larger group size was related to lower activity intensities. In addition, researchers discovered that the social environment interacts with the physical environment to influence children's physical activity intensity. For example, Gubbels and colleagues found that the outdoor physical environment influenced children's physical activity only when children engaged in an activity with multiple other peers and that positive physical activity prompts from peers more positively impacted boys' outdoor physical activity.

This study demonstrates the value of examining physical and social environmental factors and highlights the importance of addressing these factors within child-care environments in efforts to improve children's physical activity levels and prevent childhood obesity.