Temporal trends of compliance with school-based physical activity recommendations among Spanish children

Abstract

Background: According to the current physical activity (PA) recommendations, children should accumulate 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) throughout the day, 30 minutes of MVPA during the school hours, and 50% of the recess time in MVPA. Our aim was to examine the temporal trends of accelerometer-based PA during the aforementioned day segments and the proportion of children who met the PA recommendations. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study with two independent samples: 499 4th graders (49.2% females) in 2011/12 and 364 4th graders (46.9% females) in 2017/18. Hip-worn accelerometers were used to assess PA. Results: A decline in light PA (LPA), moderate PA (MPA), vigorous PA (VPA), MVPA and total PA during whole day, and in the rate of compliance with daily MVPA recommendations in males (P<0.01) was observed from 2011/12 to 2017/18. Females decreased their daily LPA and MPA (P<.05). A decline in all PA variables during school hours in both sexes (P<.05) and in the rate of compliance with the 30 minutes of MVPA recommended during school hours in males (P<.001) were observed. There were no differences in PA during recesses. Conclusions: It is needed to attenuate the temporal decrease in PA levels in children.