Association of Recess Provision With Accelerometer-Measured Physical Activity and Sedentary Time in a Representative Sample of 6- to 11-Year-Old Children in the United States

PURPOSE

To assess the association between the amount of recess provision and children's accelerometer-measured physical activity (PA) levels.

METHODS

Parents/guardians of 6- to 11-year-olds (n = 451) in the 2012 National Youth Fitness Survey reported recess provision, categorized as low (10-15 min; 31.9%), medium (16-30 min; 48.0%), or high (>30 min; 20.1%). Children wore a wrist-worn accelerometer for 7 days to estimate time spent sedentary, in light PA, and in moderate to vigorous PA using 2 different cut points for either activity counts or raw acceleration. Outcomes were compared between levels of recess provision while adjusting for covariates and the survey's multistage, probability sampling design.

RESULTS

Children with high recess provision spent less time sedentary, irrespective of type of day (week vs weekend) and engaged in more light or moderate to vigorous PA on weekdays than those with low recess provision. The magnitude and statistical significance of effects differed based on the cut points used to classify PA (eg, 4.7 vs 11.9 additional min·d-1 of moderate to vigorous PA).

CONCLUSIONS

Providing children with >30 minutes of daily recess, which exceeds current recommendations of ≥20 minutes, is associated with more favorable PA levels and not just on school days. Identifying the optimal method for analyzing wrist-worn accelerometer data could clarify the magnitude of this effect.

Relationships among meal time, break time and workplace characteristics of nurses who work day, evening and night shifts: a cross-sectional study

Objectives. This study aimed to examine the relationships among shift-working nurses' meal time, break time and workplace characteristics. Methods. The cross-sectional study analyzed 351 questionnaires from 117 nurses who worked three shifts, drawn from eight nursing units in two tertiary hospitals located in South Korea. Meal time and break time during work were investigated through a questionnaire that participants completed immediately after the end of each shift. Regression analysis was conducted to investigate the associations between nurses' work characteristics and meal time and break time. Results. Meal time and break time were less than 30 min on all shifts and significantly longer on the night shift than on the other shifts. As patients' average length of stay increased, meal time increased on day and night shifts, while break time decreased on evening shifts. Overall, a higher nursing staff-to-patient ratio was associated with shorter meal and break times. Conclusions. It was found that nurses were not able to take proper time for meals and breaks while working. A realistic and specific strategy should be prepared to address this issue, with appropriate consideration of the specific characteristics of nurse staffing, patients' conditions and shifts.

Playground designs to increase physical activity levels during school recess: a systematic review

School recess provides a major opportunity to increase children's physical activity levels. Various studies have described strategies to increase levels of physical activity. The purpose of this systematic review is therefore to examine the interventions proposed as forms of increasing children's physical activity levels during recess. A systematic search of seven databases was made from the July 1 to July 5, 2012, leading to a final set of eight studies (a total of 2,383 subjects-599 "preschoolers" and 1,784 "schoolchildren") meeting the inclusion criteria. These studies were classified according to the intervention used: playground markings, game equipment, playground markings plus physical structures, and playground markings plus game equipment. The results of these studies indicate that the strategies analyzed do have the potential to increase physical activity levels during recess. The cumulative evidence was (a) that interventions based on playground markings, game equipment, or a combination of the two, do not seem to increase the physical activity of preschoolers and schoolchildren during recess and (ii) that interventions based on playground markings plus physical structures do increase the physical activity of schoolchildren during recess in the short to medium term.