American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine 1

Abstract: Child care settings, such as nursery schools and preschools, provide important opportunities to increase physical activity in chil-dren aged 2 to 5 years. Because of the large numbers of children enrolled, physical activity interventions at child care facilities have the potential to reach many children at an age when behaviors are influenced more easily. To learn more about this possibility, the authors conducted a system-atic review of the published literature for intervention studies conducted at organized child care settings that focused on increasing children’s physical activity levels. Although 8 databases were searched from their inception, only 9 studies were found that met inclusion criteria, all of which were published since 2003. Of these, 7 studies implemented some type of organized educational pro-gram or specific curricula, whereas 2 studies implemented environmental changes. Intervention length across studies varied from 2 days to 12 months. Five studies demonstrated a positive change in physical activity; however, the limited number of studies included and the range of research quality made it difficult to draw clear conclusions. A num-ber of potential targets for increasing physical activity at child care set-tings were identified, including active opportunities, sedentary opportuni-ties, physical environment, staff train-ing and behavior, center policies, and outreach. All these areas seem to merit further investigation, and specific research questions for each are discussed