Child reported out-of-school activities associated with their self-reported physical activity

Background: Participation in out-of-school activities may be one way to increase physical activity (PA) in children. The purpose of this study was to determine which type of child-reported out-of-school activities were associated with child-reported PA. Methods: As part of a larger gardening intervention, children (n=375) in grades 4-5 (46% male, 51% white, 25% free/reduced lunch status), reported the number of days per week they met PA guidelines using a validated two-item instrument. In addition, children completed a recall questionnaire to assess their minutes per day (yesterday and Saturday) spent in screen time-, outside-, clubs-, gardening-, and youth sport activities. We examined associations among out-of-school activities and (after controlling for sex, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status) examined whether out-of-school activities were associated with PA, using linear regression. Results: Children participated in 60 min of PA 4.7 (SD=2.0) days per week. Inter-correlations between out-of-school activities were small (r < .34). Minutes per day spent outside (beta = 0.30, p < .001), gardening (beta = 0.14, p = .004) and in youth sports (beta = 0.18, p < .001) were positively associated with PA. Screen time minutes per day (beta = -.12, p = .014) was negatively associated with PA. Conclusions: Minutes spent outside, gardening, in youth sports and in screen time may be four separate pathways to increase PA. Thus, interventions could target these out-of-school activities to increase PA. Future studies should examine the predictors of out-of-school activities with objective PA measures (USDA NRI 2007-55215-18206).