A cross-sectional study of the individual, social, and built environmental correlates of pedometer based physical activity among elementary school children

Background: Children who participate in regular physical activity obtain health benefits. Preliminary pedometerbased cut-points representing sufficient levels of physical activity among youth have been established; however limited evidence regarding correlates of achieving these cut-points exists. The purpose of this study was to identify correlates of pedometer-based cut-points among elementary school-aged children.
Method: A cross-section of children in grades 5-7 (10-12 years of age) were randomly selected from the most (n = 13) and least (n = 12) ‘walkable’ public elementary schools (Perth, Western Australia), stratified by socioeconomic status. Children (n = 1480; response rate = 56.6%) and parents (n = 1332; response rate = 88.8%) completed a survey, and steps were collected from children using pedometers. Pedometer data were categorized to reflect the sex-specific pedometer-based cut-points of ≥15000 steps/day for boys and ≥12000 steps/day for girls. Associations between socio-demographic characteristics, sedentary and active leisure-time behavior, independent mobility, active transportation and built environmental variables - collected from the child and parent surveys - and meeting pedometer-based cut-points were estimated (odds ratios: OR) using generalized estimating equations.
Results: Overall 927 children participated in all components of the study and provided complete data. On average, children took 11407 ± 3136 steps/day (boys: 12270 ± 3350 vs. girls: 10681 ± 2745 steps/day; p < 0.001) and 25.9% (boys: 19.1 vs. girls: 31.6%; p < 0.001) achieved the pedometer-based cut-points. After adjusting for all other variables and school clustering, meeting the pedometer-based cut-points was negatively associated (p < 0.05) with being male (OR = 0.42), parent self-reported number of different destinations in the neighborhood (OR 0.93), and a friend’s (OR 0.62) or relative’s (OR 0.44, boys only) house being at least a 10-minute walk from home. Achieving the pedometer-based cut-points was positively associated with participating in screen-time < 2 hours/day (OR 1.88), not being driven to school (OR 1.48), attending a school located in a high SES neighborhood (OR 1.33), the average number of steps among children within the respondent’s grade (for each 500 step/day increase: OR 1.29), and living further than a 10-minute walk from a relative’s house (OR 1.69, girls only).
Conclusions: Comprehensive multi-level interventions that reduce screen-time, encourage active travel to/from school and foster a physically active classroom culture might encourage more physical activity among children.

How is active transport associated with children's and adolescents' physical activity over time?

Background : As few longitudinal studies have examined how active transport is associated with physical activity among children and adolescents over time, and how active transport tracks through childhood and adolescence, it is important to understand whether physically active children retain their activity patterns through adolescence. This study aimed to examine (a) tracking of active transport and of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) across childhood and adolescence in two age cohorts; and (b) associations between active transport and MVPA at three distinct time-points, over five years.

Methods : This longitudinal study of two cohorts aged 5-6 years (n = 134) and 10-12 years (n = 201) at baseline (T1), in Melbourne, Australia, gathered follow-up data at three (T2) and five years (T3). Walking/cycling to local destinations was survey-reported; while MVPA was recorded using accelerometers and mean time spent daily in MVPA on week days and on weekends was computed. Tracking of these behaviours was examined over five years using General Estimating Equations. Linear regression analyses were performed to examine associations between active transport and MVPA at each time-point.

Results : Active transport tracked moderately among children (boys, bs = 0.36; girls, bs = 0.51) but not among adolescents. Physical activity tracked moderately (bs value range: 0.33-0.55) for both cohorts. Active transport was not associated with children’s MVPA at any time-point, but was associated with adolescent boys’ MVPA on week days at T1 (B = 1.37 (95% CI: 0.15, 2.59)), at T2 (B = 1.27 (95% CI: 0.03, 2.51)) and at T3 (B = 0.74 (95% CI: 0.01, 1.47)), and with adolescent girls’ MVPA on week days (B = 0.40 (95% CI: 0.04, 0.76)) and on weekends (B = 0.54 (95% CI:0.16, 0.93)) at T3 only.

Conclusion : Active transport was associated only with boys’ MVPA during early adolescence and with boys’ and girls’ MVPA during late adolescence. While active transport should be encouraged among all school-aged children, it may provide an important source of habitual physical activity for adolescent girls, in particular, among whom low and declining physical activity levels have been reported world-wide.

Changing teaching practice using a school improvement cycle

This paper discusses the actions, strategies and responses of teachers during their involvement with a short cycle school improvement model in four schools. The school improvement cycles are designed to build the leadership of principals to support teachers at an individual level through a web of decision making and practices. In these cycles, teachers are both more supported and more accountable for implementing changed classroom practices in order to bring about improved student outcomes. T he school improvement model follows a pattern of decision making and negotiation across and between layers of leadership within the network and the school, but for improvement to occur at the level of the student, the teacher’s pedagogical practices need to be r(e)negotiated to ensure that teaching practice meet the needs of the students.
However, evaluating teacher practice is risky business. Teachers can say, and believe, that their practices are providing the best for their students, but this is an area of uncertainty. Using a number of strategies including observation of teacher meetings, teacher interviews and video capture, the research will investigate the issue of how directives for change are translated into classroom practice. The observation of meetings of teachers will provide an indication of the type of change required and the proposed strategies. Video-capture, which is followed by teacher interviews, will provide further information about changing teaching practice.
With teacher permission, students in the research will also view the video snippets to indicate what particular pedagogy was instrumental in their learning, providing substantial feedback to the teacher on what works best for that cohort of students at that time. Teachers will be provided with the opportunity to reflect on and learn from their practice, using video-capture as a self-reflective tool. Teachers can employ video capture as a strategy to assess their management of students, their pedagogical approaches, teaching strategies and student responses and is an emerging area of research of interest to teachers and teacher educators (e.g. Seidel, Sturmer, Blomberg, Kobarg, Schwindt, 2011). The paper will provide examples of changed teacher practice through vignettes of a number of schools, teachers and classrooms and will explore the methodological reflexivity associated with this dual role of the research: to evaluate, and to support improvement.

Is the neighbourhood environment associated with sedentary behaviour outside of school hours among children?

Background Little is known about neighbourhood environments and children’s sedentary behaviour outside school hours.
Purpose This study aims to examine the associations between public open spaces (POS), parent perceptions of the neighbourhood and children’s sedentary behaviours.
Methods Parents reported their child’s television viewing and computer/electronic game time and their perceptions of the physical and social neighbourhood. Children’s sedentary
time was objectively assessed. The closest POS was audited.
Results Cross-sectionally, living near a POS with a water feature and greater parental satisfactionwith POS quality were negatively associated with computer/e-games; greater POS area was negatively associated with TV viewing. Longitudinally, living in a cul-de-sac and greater satisfaction with POS quality were negatively associated with computer/e-games and TV viewing, respectively. Awalking path in the POS was positively associated with computer/e-games.
Conclusion Neighbourhood features appear to positively and negatively influence children’s sedentary behaviours, highlighting the complexity of urban planning on behaviour. Further age- and context-specific studies are required.

A comparison of the classification of disparate malware collected in different time periods

It has been argued that an anti-virus strategy based on malware collected at a certain date, will not work at a later date because malware evolves rapidly and an anti-virus engine is faced with a completely new type of executable not as amenable to detection as the first was. In this paper, we test this idea by collecting two sets of malware, the first from 2002 to 2007, the second from 2009 to 2010 to determine how well the anti-virus strategy we developed based on the earlier set [14] will do on the later set. This anti-virus strategy integrates dynamic and static features extracted from the executables to classify malware by distinguishing between families. The resulting classification accuracies are very close for both datasets, with a difference of only 5.4%, the older malware being more accurately classified than the newer malware. This leads us to conjecture that current anti-virus strategies can indeed be modified to deal effectively with new malware.

Increasing children’s physical activity : individual, social, and environmental factors associated with walking to and from school

Background. Efforts to increase the prevalence of children’s active school transport require evidence to inform the development of comprehensive interventions. This study used a multilevel ecological framework to investigate individual, social, and environmental factors associated with walking to and from school among elementary school-aged children, stratified by gender.
Method. Boys aged 10 to 13 years (n = 617) and girls aged 9 to 13 years (n = 681) attending 25 Australian primary schools located in high or low walkable neighborhoods completed a 1-week travel diary and a parent/child questionnaire on travel habits and attitudes.
Results. Boys were more likely (odds ratio [OR] = 3.37; p < .05) to walk if their school neighborhood had high connectivity and low traffic and less likely to walk if they had to cross a busy road (OR = 0.49; p < .05). For girls, confidence in their ability to walk to or from school without an adult (OR = 2.03), school encouragement (OR = 2.43), scheduling commitments (OR = 0.41), and parent-perceived convenience of driving (OR = 0.24) were significantly associated (p < .05) with walking. Irrespective of gender and proximity to school, child-perceived convenience of walking (boys OR = 2.17 and girls OR = 1.84) and preference to walk to school (child perceived, boys OR = 5.57, girls OR = 1.84 and parent perceived, boys OR = 2.82, girls OR = 1.90) were consistently associated (p < .05) with walking to and from school.
Conclusion. Although there are gender differences in factors influencing children walking to and from school, proximity to school, the safety of the route, and family time constraints are consistent correlates. These need to be addressed if more children are to be encouraged to walk to and from school.

Five-year changes in school recess and lunchtime and the contribution to children’s daily physical activity

Objective To investigate the longitudinal changes in children's recess and lunchtime physical activity levels and in the contribution of recess and lunchtime to daily physical activity levels over 5 years among 5–6- and 10–12-year olds.

Methods Data were drawn from two longitudinal studies that were conducted in metropolitan Melbourne, Australia. Boys and girls (n=2782) aged 5–6 years and 10–12 years participated in baseline (T0) measures. Physical activity (n=2490) was measured every 60 s for eight consecutive days using hip-mounted accelerometry. Subsequent measurements were taken at 3-year (T1; n=773) and 5-year (T2; n=634) follow-up. Physical activity intensities were derived using age-adjusted cut-points. Sedentary time was defined as 100 counts/min. Longitudinal data were analysed using three-level (time, child, school) multilevel analyses, stratified by sex and cohort, and adjusted for potential confounding variables.

Results Significant decreases in recess and lunchtime moderate and vigorous physical activity were observed (p<0.001), with larger decreases occurring in the older cohort. Associated increases were observed in sedentary time over time (p<0.01). Although the contribution of recess to daily moderate intensity physical activity increased in the younger cohort over time (p<0.001), significant decreases were observed in the older cohort (p<0.001).

Conclusion Physical activity levels during recess and lunchtime decreased in both cohorts over time. Decreases in the contribution of recess and lunchtime to older children's daily physical activity were also observed. Interventions are needed in both primary and secondary schools to promote physical activity levels during recess and lunchtime, particularly during the early years of secondary school.

Parent initiated prednisolone for acute asthma in children of school age : randomised controlled crossover trial

Objective To evaluate the efficacy of a short course of parent initiated oral prednisolone for acute asthma in children of school age.

Design Double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial in which episodes of asthma, rather than participants, were randomised to treatment.

Setting The Barwon region of Victoria, Australia.

Participants Children aged 5-12 years with a history of recurrent episodes of acute asthma.

Intervention A short course of parent initiated treatment with prednisolone (1 mg/kg a day) or placebo.

Main outcome measures The primary outcome measure was the mean daytime symptom score over seven days. Secondary outcome measures were mean night time symptom score over seven days, use of health resources, and school absenteeism.

Results 230 children were enrolled in the study. Over a three year period, 131 (57%) of the participants contributed a total of 308 episodes of asthma that required parent initiated treatment: 155 episodes were treated with parent initiated prednisolone and 153 with placebo. The mean daytime symptom score was 15% lower in episodes treated with prednisolone than in those treated with placebo (geometric mean ratio 0.85, 95% CI 0.74 to 0.98; P=0.023). Treatment with prednisolone was also associated with a 16% reduction in the night time symptom score (geometric mean ratio 0.84, 95% CI 0.70 to 1.00; P=0.050), a reduced risk of health resource use (odds ratio 0.54, 95% CI 0.34 to 0.86; P=0.010), and reduced school absenteeism (mean difference −0.4 days, 95% CI −0.8 to 0.0 days; P=0.045).

Conclusion A short course of oral prednisolone initiated by parents when their child experiences an episode of acute asthma may reduce asthma symptoms, health resource use, and school absenteeism. However, the modest benefits of this strategy must be balanced against potential side effects of repeated short courses of an oral corticosteroid.

Volunteering in a school kitchen garden program : cooking up confidence, capabilities and connections!

This paper reports on the evaluation of a kitchen garden program in primary schools in Victoria, Australia. It focuses on the motivations, impacts, and issues associated with volunteering in the program. The study revealed that volunteers are drawn from a range of sources, including: families of current and former students, former teachers, local residents, clients of aged care and/or disability services, other schools and communities, local universities, community organizations, the community services sector, and the corporate sector. Benefits to volunteers included: opportunities to use time productively, an increased sense of belonging, learning opportunities, and an increased sense of self-worth and enjoyment. For schools, volunteers enhanced engagement between the school and the local community, enabled them to engage more effectively with hard to reach groups, and increased student engagement. In addition, the involvement of volunteers improved the sustainability of the program, improved communication between teachers and families of students from minority ethnic groups, and gave students the chance to relate to new people, to learn from their experience and to have fun in working with the volunteers. Perhaps the most telling benefits to flow both to students and to volunteers were not the “three Rs—reading, w’riting and a’rithmetic” but the three Cs—confidence, capabilities, and connections. However, a clearly identified issue was the importance of matching volunteers’ motivations and needs with the roles they play to sustain current levels of volunteering and, therefore, the program itself.

Twisted things : playing with time

Twisted Things: Playing with Time is a film script and exegesis. The script, a murder mystery, slips between contemporary Melbourne and Melbourne in 1959 during the making of, ‘On the Beach’. The exegesis explores history by considering Melbourne in 1959, glamour and image, and the cinema of time.

Differences between 9-11 year old British Pakistani and White British girls in physical activity and behavior during school recess

Background School recess provides an important opportunity for children to engage in physical activity. Previous studies indicate that children and adults of South Asian origin are less active than other ethnic groups in the United Kingdom, but have not investigated whether activity differs within the shared school environment. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that British Pakistani girls aged 9–11 years are less active during recess than White British girls.

Methods In Study One, the proportion of recess spent by 137 White British (N = 70) and British Pakistani (N = 67) girls in sedentary behavior, moderate-to-vigorous activity (MVPA) and vigorous activity (VPA) was determined using accelerometry. In Study Two, 86 White British (N = 48) and British Pakistani (N = 38) girls were observed on the playground using the System for Observing Children’s Activity and Relationships during Play (SOCARP). Accelerometry data were collected during observations to allow identification of activities contributing to objectively measured physical activity.

Results Accelerometry data indicated that British Pakistani girls spent 2.2% (95% CI: 0.2, 4.3) less of their total recess time in MVPA and 1.3% (95% CI: 0.2, 2.4) less in VPA than White British girls. Direct observation showed that British Pakistani girls spent 12.0% (95% CI: 2.9, 21.1) less playground time being very active, and 12.3% (95% CI: 1.7, 23.0) less time playing games. Time spent being very active according to direct observation data correlated significantly with accelerometer-assessed time spent in MVPA and VPA, and time spent playing games correlated significantly with accelerometer-assessed time spent in VPA, suggesting that differences in behavior observed in Study Two may have contributed to the differences in time spent in MVPA and VPA in Study One.

Conclusions British Pakistani girls were less active than White British girls during school recess. Recess has been identified as a potentially important target for the delivery of physical activity interventions; such interventions should consider ways in which the activity levels of British Pakistani girls could be increased.

Conducting field research in a primary school setting : methodological considerations for maximizing response rates, data quality and quantity

Background: Schools are an ideal setting in which to involve children in research. Yet for investigators wishing to work in these settings, there are few method papers providing insights into working efficiently in this setting.

Objective: The aim of this paper is to describe the five strategies used to increase response rates, data quality and quantity in the TRansport Environment and Kids (TREK) project.

Setting: The TREK project examined the association between neighbourhood urban design and active transport in Grade 5–7 school children (n = 1480) attending 25 primary schools in metropolitan Perth, Western Australia during 2007.

Method: Children completed several survey components during school time (i.e. questionnaire, mapping activity, travel diary and anthropometric measurements) and at home (i.e. pedometer study, parent questionnaire).

Results: Overall, 69.4% of schools and 56.6% of children agreed to participate in the study and, of these, 89.9% returned a completed travel diary, 97.8% returned their pedometer and 88.8% of parents returned their questionnaire. These return rates are superior to similar studies. Five strategies appeared important: (1) building positive relationships with key school personnel; (2) child-centred approaches to survey development; (3) comprehensive classroom management techniques to standardize and optimize group sessions; (4) extensive follow-up procedures for collecting survey items; and (5) a specially designed data management/monitoring system.

Conclusion: Sharing methodological approaches for obtaining high-quality data will ensure research opportunities within schools are maximized. These methodological issues have implications for planning, budgeting and implementing future research.

Is a change in mode of travel to school associated with a change in overall physical activity levels in children? Longitudinal results from the SPEEDY study

Background
Children who use active modes of travel (walking or cycling) to school are more physically active than those who use passive (motorised) modes. However, less is known on whether a change in mode of travel to school is associated with a change in children’s physical activity levels. The purpose of this analysis was to investigate the association between change in mode of travel to school and change in overall physical activity levels in children.

Methods
Data from 812 9–10 year old British children (59% girls) who participated in the SPEEDY study were analysed. During the summer terms of 2007 and 2008 participants completed a questionnaire and wore an accelerometer for at least three days. Two-level multiple linear regression models were used to explore the association between change in usual mode of travel to school and change in objectively measured time spent in MVPA.

Results
Compared to children whose reported mode of travel did not change, a change from a passive to an active mode of travel was associated with an increase in daily minutes spent in MVPA (boys: beta 11.59, 95% CI 0.94 to 22.24; girls: beta 11.92, 95% CI 5.00 to 18.84). This increase represented 12% of boys’ and 13% of girls’ total daily time spent in MVPA at follow-up.

Conclusion
This analysis provides further evidence that promoting active travel to school may have a role in contributing to increasing physical activity levels in children.