Do New York City daycare centers meet newly-mandated policies for physical activity and screen time

In January 2007, the New York City (NYC) Department of Health and Mental Hygiene mandated physical activity (PA) policies to the NYC Health Code for licensed group daycare centers. Centers need to provide children with at least 60 minutes of daily PA, including at least 30 minutes of teacher-led structured PA, for children ages 2 and older. Sedentary PA should be limited to no more than 60 minutes/day, and educational TV programs should comprise <60 minutes/day. We used survey and direct observation methods to assess adherence to the new policies and to ascertain barriers to their implementation in 40 NYC daycare centers. Per interviews, each center provided indoor and outdoor PA, including teacher-led PA, ranging from 50-390 minutes/day. All but 2 centers offered indoor and outdoor free play, ranging from 25 to 195 minutes/day, and 30 centers offered structured PA ranging from 5 to 80 minutes/day. Directors from 20 centers allowed TV use; Directors from almost all centers allowed computer use. We observed children at 4 centers watching <1 hour of TV; children at 10 centers used computers for <1 hour/day. NYC also mandates that centers post daily schedules; 38 centers had schedules posted. The 40 centers in our sample generally complied with the new PA policies, but Directors expressed concerns about limited outdoor space and the need for structured PA training. We are currently using accelerometers to gather objective data on the PA of children at a subset of these centers.