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The school setting provides an opportune environment for the promotion of physical activity in young people. The present study investigated associations of active travel and indicators of the availability of physical activity opportunities throughout the school day with young people’s self-reported physical activity (total activity and moderate-to-vigorous activity) and sedentary behaviours.
Methods
Individual-level data provided by the 2013/14 cross-sectional survey ‘Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study in Wales’ were linked to school-level data within the ‘HBSC School Environment Questionnaire’. The final sample comprised 7,376 young people aged 11-16 years across 67 schools. Multilevel modelling was used to examine predictors of total physical activity, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary behaviours (screen-based behaviours).
Results
Taking more physical activity (less than 5 days vs. 5 or more days per week), engaging in higher levels of MVPA (less than 4 hours vs. 4 or more hours per week) and reporting 2 or less hours of sedentary time were predicted by a range of individual level variables. Active travel to school was shown to positively predict high levels of physical activity, however, gender stratified models revealed active travel as a predictor amongst girls only (OR:1.25 (95%CI:1.05 - 1.49)). No school-level factors were shown to predict physical activity levels, however, a lower school socio-economic status was associated with a higher level of MVPA (OR:1.02 (95%CI:1.01 - 1.03)) and a lower risk of sedentary behaviour (OR:0.97 (95%CI:0.96 – 0.99)). A shorter lunch break (OR:1.33 (95%CI:1.11 - 1.49)) and greater provision of facilities (OR:1.02 (95%CI:1.00 - 1.05)) were associated with increased sedentary activity. Gender stratified models revealed that time allocated to PE lessons and the provision of sports facilities were predictors of sedentary behaviours for boys.
Conclusion
Our results highlight the importance of encouraging schools to maintain or extend lunch breaks in order to provide sufficient time for young people to be active and in turn reduce sedentary behaviours. The findings also suggest that active travel could offer a mechanism for increasing physical activity levels particularly amongst girls. Particularly, the design and evaluation of interventions to promote physical activity during school hours should pay close attention to discouraging sedentary behaviour outside of school hours.