Does Activity Space Size Influence Physical Activity Levels of Adolescents? - A GPS study of an urban environment.
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ABSTRACT: Background
Physical activity (PA) is closely linked with child and youth health, and active travel may be a solution to enhancing PA levels. Activity spaces depict the geographic coverage of one's travel. Little is known about activity spaces and PA in adolescents.Objective
To explore the relation between adolescent travel (using a spatial measure of activity space size) and daily moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA), with a focus on school days.Methods
In Fall 2012, we used Global Positioning Systems to manually identify trips and generate activity spaces for each person-day; quantified by area for 39 students (13.8±0.6 years, 38% female) attending high school in urban Downtown Vancouver, Canada. We assessed the association between activity space area and MVPA using multi-level regression. We calculated total, school-day and trip-based MVPA for each valid person-day (accelerometry; ≥ 600 min wear time).Results
On school days, students accrued 68.2 min/day (95% CI 60.4-76.0) of MVPA. Daily activity spaces averaged 2.2 km2 (95% CI 1.3-3.0). There was no association between activity space size and school-day MVPA. Students accrued 21.8 min/day (95% CI 19.2-24.4) of MVPA during school hours, 19.4 min/day (95% CI 15.1-23.7) during travel, and 28.3 min/day (95% CI 22.3-34.3) elsewhere.Conclusion
School and school travel are important sources of PA in Vancouver adolescents, irrespective of activity space area covered.
SUBMITTER: Lee NC
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4718608 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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