Can family-focused active play help preschoolers move more?

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Early childhood is an opportunity to promote physical activity, but interventions so far have had limited effectiveness. Socio-ecological models suggest that targeting parents may help foster healthier lifestyles in children. This study examined whether a family-focused 'Active Play' intervention could reduce sedentary time and increase total physical activity in preschool children.

Researchers recruited 77 families from 8 randomly selected SureStart children's centres in North West England. The centres were randomly assigned to an intervention group (4 centres) or a comparison group (4 centres). Parents and children in the intervention group received a 10-week active play programme, including activity and educational components, delivered by trained active play professionals. Comparison families were asked to maintain their usual routine.

Each participating parent and child wore a uni-axial accelerometer for 7 days at baseline and again at post-test. Researchers used multilevel analyses to assess weekday and weekend-day sedentary time and total physical activity, adjusting for child- and home-level covariates.

Significant intervention effects were found for sedentary time and physical activity on both weekdays and weekend days. Compared with children in the comparison group, children in the intervention group spent 1.5% less time sedentary on weekdays and 4.3% less on weekend days; they had 4.5% more physical activity on weekdays and 13.1% more on weekend days.

Parents' sport participation and physical activity levels, the child's sex, availability of media in the home and attendance at organised activities were significant predictors of sedentary time and physical activity in this age group. The researchers concluded that the 10-week family-focused intervention produced positive changes in preschoolers' sedentary time and total physical activity, and that specific covariates had significant effects on the outcomes. Children with active parents spent less time sedentary and were more physically active, suggesting to the researchers that parents' activity habits may mediate physical activity engagement in this age group.