Children who actively commute to school are more active and engage in more moderate to vigorous physical activityWhile active commuting to school has been linked to higher physical activity levels, little is known about the actual journey to school. The purpose of this study by Cooper and colleagues was to investigate children's level and location of physical activity during the school commute. The importance of the study was framed in the context of changes in society that favor car use to address an increase in the distance between children’s home environments and their school locations, and higher traffic volumes between home and school as well. The authors note that efforts are underway to reduce the decline in active travel to school for children in order to increase their physical activity. Previous to this research, no study had combined accelerometer and global positioning system (GPS) data for the purposes of investigating children’s journey to school.
As part of this study, 137 11-year-old children in west London wore an accelerometer for one week and a global positioning system receiver for two days. Participating children also completed a diary and survey.
In analyzing the data, Cooper and colleagues found that 51% of the children walked to school, 34% traveled by car, 13% traveled by bus, and 1.5% traveled by bicycle. In terms of physical activity, researchers found that children who walked to school were more active in the hour before school and engaged in more moderate to vigorous physical activity than children who traveled by car. Cooper and colleagues also discovered that children took very direct routes to school and spent time on the playground before school started. In terms of physical activity, researchers found that children were more physically active during the journey to school as compared to on the playground before school.
This study demonstrates the important role that active commuting to school can play in supporting children's physical activity.
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