Sedentary Lifestyle and Childhood: An Ecological Approach

Background: Nowadays reports about health problems due to inactivity have spread around the world (Botey et al., 2015; Patterson et al., 2018), however, a sedentary lifestyle has increased in every age, even among young children (Finn, 2002; De Onis et al., 2010; Cunningham et al., 2014). Studies have been conducted, but, the majority of them just look at correlations between variables without taking into account the complexity of the problem (Gabbart & Krebs, 2012).

Aims: The goal of this study was to unveil some aspects that need to be considered to face public health policy to increase Physical Activity (PA) for young children.

Methods: This study was based in the ecological design proposed by Bronfenbrenner (2005), that has been used in studies of child growth and development (Krebs, 2009) and investigated the Microsystem, Mesosystem, Exosystem and the Macrosystem. Data were collected through questionnaires with 197 teachers and 241 parents, in a randomized sample from five cities of the State of Tocantins, Brazil. Reports were also prepared from the National Survey of Health (2013), Population Census (2010), and Cities (IBGE, National Institute of Geography and Statistic, 2015).

Results: In the Microsystem it could be seen that both teachers and parents perceive that physical activity is important but they provided low frequencies of PA practice to their children. Mesosystem analysis showed a contradiction between frequency of PA in the school and home environment and a discrepancy between the opinion of the parents and the teachers related to the PA that was offered to the children. Exosystem revealed association among PA habits of parents and teachers and children’s practice of PA. In the Macrosystem we identified that poor quality of early childhood education, lack of PA in the general population, unevenness of professional training programs and beliefs of adults have led to difficulties in offering PA to young children.

Discussion: The context analysis showed that PA for young children has not been valorized in practical actions although teachers and parents recognize its values for education and child development. This has limited the opportunities of choice and hampered the realization to strategies which reverse the low levels of PA among preschoolers, and it may risk the development of children.

Conclusion: In order to face the risk of sedentary lifestyle we need to rethink