A Systematic Review Of Accelerometry Derived Levels Of Sedentary Behaviour Amongst Preschool Children (3 To 5 Years)

Background Accumulating evidence suggests that young children are spending greater amounts of time in sedentary behaviour. With this, evidence to date has also reported increased levels of young children not engaging in adequate physical activity in order to meet recommendations for health. The relationship of inactivity with all cause mortality disease and obesity is growing and accelerometry has strengthened research in this area as investigators have been able to quantify various intensities with a valid tool. As preschool children are particularly unpredictable with their movements accelerometers are best suited to capture and quantify their activity intensity in very short time frames. There has been a revelation within the literature that inactivity and obesity can track from this age group through to childhood and even adolescence which has meant that there has been a wealth of research conducted among preschools children's activity levels and intensity via accelerometry. With various cut points available to quantify sedentary behaviour, a review would evaluate and analyse sedentary behaviour but also critique the methods and differences among investigators management of raw data. Objectives The aim of this review was to distinguish what levels of sedentary behaviour preschool children are engaging in measured by accelerometry. Search Strategies A search of 6 datbases was conducted between the 18 th and 20 th of April 2013 using a pre- determined selection of key words. The databases were: PubMed, Medline, Cinahl, Psych Info, Sport Discus and Cochrane Library. Subsequently, the reference lists of all articles selected for inclusion were also searched to identify any additional studies. Selection Criteria All study designs published between the years of January 1993- January 2013 were included. Studies must have been available in the English language. Participants (boys and girls) aged from 3 up to and including 5 years old were included. Accelerometers had been used to objectively measure sedentary behaviour. Data Collection and Analysis Final articles were selected on the basis of the pre-determined selection criteria and qualitative analysis was completed for each. The methodological quality of all studies was assessed using the EPHPP quality assessment tool. Main Results Nine papers were selected for inclusion in this review. The results of this review indicate preschool children are engaging in greater amounts of sedentary behaviour with a range of 50- 85% of time spent in sedentary behaviour being recorded by authors. An interesting finding from this review was that girls were found to engage in sedentary behaviour more than boys, this was enforced by another study which found that girls are influence by more correlates than boys such as BMIz score and child athletic coordination. However, when examining how investigators analysed and evaluated raw data from accelerometers it was found that there is inconsistencies and lack of standardisation regarding how thresholds and epochs are used to measure sedentary behaviour. Conclusion Preschool children are spending greater amount of time in sedentary behaviour however among the nine papers included in this review all authors varied in how they collected and managed raw data from the accelerometers. Therefore, it is difficult to compare findings from and draw a sound conclusion from the available evidence on what percentage of time this population is spending in sedentary behaviour. Further research is required in order to reach a consensus on measurement issues so that results can be easily compared.msc_physpreunpub1680_ethesesunpu