ArticleThe international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity2023
Short and medium-term effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns on child and parent accelerometer-measured physical activity and sedentary time: a natural experiment.
Article in The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 43 citations in OpenAlex.
- Five-year trends in overweight and obesity among preschool children before and during the COVID-19 period: a retrospective repeated-measures analysis in Southwest China.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Primary school physical activity culture in the UK: findings from a four-month rapid ethnography in three schools.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Development and validation of an explainable machine learning-based risk prediction model for obesity in Chinese children and adolescents: a population-based study.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Physical Activity and Screen Time Trends in Swedish Youth: The Generation Pep Study 2018-2023.Acta paediatrica (Oslo, Norway : 1992) · 2025Article
- The complexity of promoting physical activity in English state primary schools: an in-depth qualitative analysis of the role of social context.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Designing context-specific physical activity interventions for English primary schools: key learning from a four-month rapid ethnography.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Article
- Designing stepped wedge trials to evaluate physical activity interventions in schools: methodological considerations.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2025Article
- "We just have to work with what we've got": a qualitative analysis of contextual challenges in facilities and resources for pupil physical activity in English primary schools.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Post-coronavirus disease 2019-associated symptoms among children and adolescents in the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron era.European journal of pediatrics · 2024Article
- Effects of school closure on lifestyle behaviours and health outcomes in children during the COVID-19 pandemic in Chile: A time-matched analysis.Pediatric obesity · 2024Article
- Neighborhood Social and Physical Environments and Sedentary Behaviors: Importance of Early Childhood in Shaping Health Behaviors.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2024Article
- Physical Activity and Sedentary Time Among U.S. Adolescents Before and During COVID-19: Findings From a Large Cohort Study.AJPM focus · 2024Article
- Data Analytics in Physical Activity Studies With Accelerometers: Scoping Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- School-level intra-cluster correlation coefficients and autocorrelations for children's accelerometer-measured physical activity in England by age and gender.BMC medical research methodology · 2024Article
- Physical activity interventions in European primary schools: a scoping review to create a framework for the design of tailored interventions in European countries.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Applying intervention mapping to develop a program for promoting short physical activity breaks during class time in upper secondary schools: the MOVE12 protocol study.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2024Article
- The status of active after-school clubs among primary school children in England (UK) after the COVD-19 lockdowns: implications for policy and practice.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2023Article
- The Bidirectional Correlation between Fundamental Motor Skill and Moderate-to-Vigorous Physical Activities: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- The new normal for children's physical activity and screen viewing: a multi-perspective qualitative analysis of behaviours a year after the COVID-19 lockdowns in the UK.BMC public health · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
13 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in marked impacts on children's physical activity, with large reductions in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) reported during lockdowns. Previous evidence showed children's activity levels were lower and sedentary time higher immediately post-COVID lockdown, while there was little change in parental physical activity. We need to know if these patterns persist.
methodsActive-6 is a natural experiment using repeated cross-sectional data conducted in two waves. Accelerometer data were collected on 393 children aged 10-11 and their parents from 23 schools in Wave 1 (June 2021-December 2021), and 436 children and parents from 27 schools in Wave 2 (January 2022-July 2022). These were compared to a pre-COVID-19 comparator group (March 2017-May 2018) of 1,296 children and parents in the same schools. Mean minutes of accelerometer-measured MVPA and sedentary time were derived for week- and weekend-days and compared across waves via linear multilevel models. We also analysed the date of data collection as a time series, to explore temporal patterns via generalised additive mixed models.
resultsThere was no difference in children's mean MVPA in Wave 2 (weekdays: -2.3 min; 95% CI: -5.9, 1.3 and weekends: 0.6 min; 95% CI: -3.5, 4.6) when compared to the pre-COVID-19 data. Sedentary time remained higher than pre-pandemic by 13.2 min (95% CI:5.3, 21.1) on weekdays. Differences compared to pre-COVID-19 changed over time, with children's MVPA decreasing over winter, coinciding with COVID-19 outbreaks, and only returning to pre-pandemic levels towards May/June 2022. Parents' sedentary time and weekday MVPA was similar to pre-COVID-19 levels, with MVPA higher than pre-pandemic by 7.7 min (95% CI: 1.4, 14.0) on weekends.
conclusionAfter an initial drop, children's MVPA returned to pre-pandemic levels by July 2022, while sedentary time remained higher. Parents' MVPA remained higher, especially at weekends. The recovery in physical activity is precarious and potentially susceptible to future COVID-19 outbreaks or changes in provision, and so robust measures to protect against future disruptions are needed. Furthermore, many children are still inactive, with only 41% meeting UK physical activity guidelines, and so there is still a need to increase children's physical activity.
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