On Friday 27 November 2015 Active Movement held a
conference entitled “Innovation in combatting children’s inactivity and obesity”
at the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health (ISEH) in London. Dr Farrah Jawad registrar in Sport and Exercise Medicine, currently working at the ISEH gives
an overview of the event:
Active Movement is an initiative that focuses on
simple behaviour changes to empower people to sit less and move more. Their
aim is to: (i) integrate low level activity into our daily lives, (ii) make
movement accessible for all, without requiring special equipment or skills and
(iii) remove the perceived barriers that may preclude some people from
participating in sport or going to the gym, for example. The Active
Movement team has recently been involved in teaching this concept to nursery
and primary school children and plan to extend this to secondary schools.
Innovation in combatting children’s inactivity and obesity – Paul
Chadwick
- We cannot change behaviour without first understanding the driver
of the behaviour
- The Behaviour Change Wheel(1) has universal applicability
to any behaviour and can be a useful tool to facilitate behaviour change
- Behaviour change requires capability (physical and psychological),
motivation and opportunity; for increasing physical activity which might
mean safe spaces, cues and reminders to be active, credible role models,
and so on
- Innovation does not have to mean something completely new, rather
we can innovate through what we already know.
Innovation and collective wellbeing – Linda
Baston-Pitt
- The early years are a critical period in the establishment of
sedentary and active behaviours, so shaping behaviour at a young age is
very important.
- Children’s wellbeing and future development is dependent on having
a high parent and staff well-being and an emotionally positive
environment.
- A bottom-up approach may work best – teaching children directly in
their schools, in their early years, should help them grow into active,
less sedentary adults.
A review of Beat the Street – getting more
children active within the school and community – William Bird MBE
- Exercise has positive effects on executive function and mathematics
achievement in children;(2,3) we do not have to decide between
physical activity and academic achievement as the two go hand in hand.
- The theme of the Beat the Street initiative was to transform the
streets into an activity centre. Children and adults were given smart cards
and sensors were put up across the city in Reading, England (approximate
population 207,000). Health messages were avoided, and people were
encouraged to travel around the city to touch the sensors with their smart
cards in order to gain points to win prizes. Around 39% of the
population took part (approximately 10,000 children and 13,000 adults).
- Beat the Street participants reported that their biggest reasons
for taking part were “feeling healthier,” “getting fit,” and “having fun.”
- The
organisers found that participants were likely to stay active at 3 months
(which they defined as achieving 30 minutes physical activity five times a
week) and after one year, there also seemed to be retention of physical
activity levels.
- Beat
the Street has been rolled out in Thurrock, Norwich and Cambridge and will
be coming to further areas in the UK in 2016.
The impact of changing the learning environment to
improve health and learning – Stacy Clemes
- Sedentary behaviour is common and automatic due to our lifestyle. Nearly
2/3 of 9-10 year olds spend 2/3 of the day sitting(4).
- Sedentary behaviour tracks from childhood to adulthood.
- Sit-to-stand desks in primary schools have been shown to be
effective in increasing energy expenditure(5,6) and standing and
movement during the school day(7).
- A small scale study took place at a primary school in Bradford,
England. Baseline data showed that children spent around 9.5 hours a day
sitting on their school days (69% of their wake time), and 10.5 hours
sitting on non-school days (70% of their wake time). Around 70% of
class time was spent sitting and 71% of after school time was spent
sitting.
- Children were exposed to sit-to-stand desks for an hour each day
and after this intervention, time sitting decreased and time spent
stepping increased significantly.
- A comparative study in Melbourne, Australia saw similar effects.
- The BBC reported on the study in Bradford and you can watch the two
minute clip here
Active movement – innovation in behaviour change –Mike Loosemore and Peter Savage
- Most children are active not as a learned behaviour but
instinctively.
- Active Movement aims to establish low level activity as normal
practice by engaging with early years children to integrate movement into
the daily routine. There is an emphasis here on activity not being a
“bolt-on extra” for busy teachers to try to incorporate into the day but
on physical activity being a natural, integrated part of the day.
- Active Movement has given nursery and primary schools materials on
how to increase their physical activity throughout the day and does this
with the use of characters as role models (“Sid”, who sits, and “Stan”,
who stands). Staff working at the schools were also given material about
the benefits of physical activity and how they can increase their own
levels of activity, thereby making them into physical activity role models
too.
Leyf (London Early Years Foundation) Nurseries –
June O’Sullivan MBE
- Children are the litmus test – if anything is going wrong in our
society, it is first evident in children.
- 25% of British children are overweight by the time they start
primary school.
- 1,000,000 children in the UK go to nursery each day – there is
opportunity to intervene by entering into pedagogical conversations with
parents, harnessing “Pester Power,” championing outdoor play, good food
procurement and cooking skills in order to facilitate positive behaviour
change.
The event was a chance to consider different
strategies of reducing sedentary behaviour in our communities, emphasising the
concept that innovation does not need to be something completely new, rather
harnessing what we know already and thinking of simple, effective ways of
implementing change that involves whole communities.
References
- Michie, S, van Stralen, M, West, R (2011). The behaviour
change wheel: A new method for characterising and designing behaviour
change interventions. Implementation Science 2011, 6:42
doi:10.1186/1748-5908-6-42
- Davis CL, Tomporowski PD, McDowell JE, et al. Exercise Improves
Executive Function and Achievement and Alters Brain Activation in
Overweight Children: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Health psychology :
official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American
Psychological Association. 2011;30(1):91-98. doi:10.1037/a0021766.
- Tomporowski PD, Davis CL, Miller PH, Naglieri JA. Exercise and
Children’s Intelligence, Cognition, and Academic Achievement. Educational
psychology review. 2008;20(2):111-131. doi:10.1007/s10648-007-9057-0.
- Steele, Rebekah M., et al. “Targeting sedentary time or
moderate-and vigorous-intensity activity: independent relations with
adiposity in a population-based sample of 10-y-old British children.” The
American journal of clinical nutrition 90.5 (2009): 1185-1192
- Benden, M. E., J. J. Congleton, and R. Fink. “An in-situ study of
the habits of users that impact office chair design and testing.” Journal
of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 1.53 (2011): 38-49.
- Benden, M, Zhao, H, Jeffrey C (2014). The Evaluation of the Impact
of a Stand-Biased Desk on Energy Expenditure and Physical Activity for
Elementary School Students. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2014,
11(9), 9361-9375; doi:10.3390/ijerph110909361
- Lanningham-Foster, L., Foster, R. C., McCrady, S. K., Manohar, C.
U., Jensen, T. B., Mitre, N. G., Hill, J. O. and Levine, J. A. (2008),
Changing the School Environment to Increase Physical Activity in Children.
Obesity, 16: 1849–1853. doi: 10.1038/oby.2008.282
Further reading
Hunter RF, de Silva D, Reynolds V, Bird W, Fox KR.
International inter-school competition to encourage children to walk to school:
a mixed methods feasibility study. BMC Research Notes. 2015;8:19.
doi:10.1186/s13104-014-0959-x.
W J Brown, A E Bauman, N Owen. Stand up, sit
down, keep moving: turning circles in physical activity research? Br J
Sports Med 2009;43:86-88 doi:10.1136/bjsm.2008.055285
Clemes, S, Barber, S, Bingham D (2015).
Reducing children’s classroom sitting time using sit-to-stand desks: findings
from pilot studies in UK and Australian primary schools. J Public Health
first published online June 14, 2015 doi:10.1093/pubmed/fdv084