Publications

The purpose of this review is to summarize the scientific contributions of the International Study of Childhood Obesity, Lifestyle and the Environment (ISCOLE) in extending our understanding about obesity in children from around the world. ISCOLE was a multi-national study of 9 to 11 year-old children from sites in 12 countries from all inhabited continents. The primary purpose was to investigate relationships between lifestyle behaviors and obesity, and the influence of higher-order characteristics such as behavioral settings, and physical, social and policy environments. ISCOLE has made several advances in scientific methodology related to the assessment of physical activity, dietary behavior, sleep and the neighborhood and school environments. Furthermore, ISCOLE has provided important evidence on (1) epidemiological transitions in obesity and related behaviors, (2) correlates of obesity and lifestyle behaviors at the individual, neighborhood and school levels, and (3) 24-h movement behaviors in relation to novel analytical techniques. A key feature of ISCOLE was the development of a platform for international training, data entry, and data quality for multi-country studies. Finally, ISCOLE represents a transparent model for future public-private research partnerships across low, middle and high-income countries.

Background Previous reviews show a favourable relationship between physical activity (PA) and brain health in children and youth. The purpose of this systematic review was to extend the generalizability of previous findings using only studies that employed randomized controlled designs in a wider age range. Methods After registration in PROSPERO, PRISMA guidelines were followed. Studies must have used a randomized controlled design; manipulated PA once (i.e., acute) or more (i.e., chronic) in apparently healthy children (1 month-17.99 years); and examined cognitive function, brain function, or brain structure as outcomes. Articles were reviewed for inclusion and data extraction were performed in duplicate. Results Overall, 84 studies from 83 papers with 12,600 unique participants were included (nrange = 10–1,224, Mrange = 0.77–17 years). Studies were mostly rated as low risk of bias. The majority of studies (n = 52) reported at least one favourable cognitive function outcome associated with a PA intervention. Few studies (n = 6) reported an unfavourable outcome. Examining the multiple cognitive function outcomes within each study, PA had mostly no effect (nacute = 29, nchronic = 47) or a mix of favourable and no effects (nacute = 20, nchronic = 27). For brain function, acute PA was associated with no change (n = 2) whereas chronic PA was associated with a mix of increases, decreases, or no change (n = 3). For brain structure, two overlapping studies found either favourable or no effects of chronic PA. Discussion PA is unlikely to harm brain health in children and youth and may confer some benefits. More research is needed to examine the relationship between PA and brain structure and function.

Adolescents who engage in physical activity experience positive mental health outcomes. However, the increasing prevalence of physical inactivity combined with high screen time use among adolescents is a growing concern. Parents play an important role in shaping adolescents' physical activity and screen time levels through active participation and involvement. This nationally representative cross-sectional study used self-reported data from the 2019 Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth. The frequency of family physical activity included five categories from "never" to "daily." Outcome measures included achieving the physical activity (60 minutes or more of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day) and recreational screen time (two hours or less per day) recommendations, as well as mental health indicators. Logistic regression analyses examined the associations between family physical activity frequency and adolescents' physical activity, screen time, and mental health, with adjustments for relevant covariates. In adjusted models, across all outcomes, results showed that a higher frequency of family physical activity was associated with better outcomes in a dose-response relationship when compared with never engaging in family physical activity. The strongest associations for daily frequency of family physical activity (compared with never engaging in it) were with high life satisfaction (odd ratio [OR]: 4.25, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 3.16 to 5.72) and with high perceived mental health (OR: 3.60, 95% CI: 2.62 to 4.96). Subgroup analyses stratified by gender were generally consistent with the main results. A higher frequency of family physical activity was associated with a greater likelihood of adhering to the physical activity and recreational screen time recommendations and better mental health in Canadian adolescents. Family physical activity may be an important way to promote adolescents' physical activity and positively influence their mental health.

With the purpose to demonstrate changes on the malnutrition syndrome during nutrition transition a comparison was made in 2000 vs 2010. In the earlier, a cross sectional study carried out in children (60–120 mo) of the Instituto Alteño para el Desarrollo de Jalisco (INADEJ); in the latter a case‐control study with children (60–144 mo) from INADEJ (cases) and children of similar age and sex randomly selected from the education system (Controls). Anthropometric and biochemical indicators, and socio‐demographic variables were included, table 1. Chi square test and odds ratio were estimated. During the last decade, the nutritional status of children living in Arandas, Jalisco are being influenced by socio‐demographic factors of the epidemiological and nutrition transition. This study was sponsored by National Council for Science and Technology, Mexico & Teasdale Corti Grant # 103460–044, Canada.

Global surveillance of physical activity (PA) of children and adolescents with questionnaires is limited by the use of instruments developed in high-income countries (HICs) lacking sociocultural adaptation, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs); under-representation of some PA domains; and omission of active play, an important source of PA. Addressing these limitations would help improve international comparisons, and facilitate the cross-fertilisation of ideas to promote PA. We aim to develop and assess the reliability and validity of the app-based Global Adolescent and Child Physical Activity Questionnaire (GAC-PAQ) among 8-17 years old in 14 LMICs and HICs representing all continents; and generate the 'first available data' on active play in most participating countries.

The health effects of daily activity behaviours (physical activity, sedentary time and sleep) are widely studied. While previous research has largely examined activity behaviours in isolation, recent studies have adjusted for multiple behaviours. However, the inclusion of all activity behaviours in traditional multivariate analyses has not been possible due to the perfect multicollinearity of 24-h time budget data. The ensuing lack of adjustment for known effects on the outcome undermines the validity of study findings. We describe a statistical approach that enables the inclusion of all daily activity behaviours, based on the principles of compositional data analysis. Using data from the International Study of Childhood Obesity, Lifestyle and the Environment, we demonstrate the application of compositional multiple linear regression to estimate adiposity from children's daily activity behaviours expressed as isometric log-ratio coordinates. We present a novel method for predicting change in a continuous outcome based on relative changes within a composition, and for calculating associated confidence intervals to allow for statistical inference. The compositional data analysis presented overcomes the lack of adjustment that has plagued traditional statistical methods in the field, and provides robust and reliable insights into the health effects of daily activity behaviours.

To examine parental support of child physical activity with an adapted theory of planned behavior model.A representative sample of Canadian mothers (N = 663) who completed measures of family priorities, social cognition, and child physical activity.An assessment of family priorities showed that mothers ranked physical activity almost as high as homework and far higher than other activities. Attitude about providing support for child physical activity predicted intention, yet only perceived control over support predicted behavior.Mothers perceive great import of physical activity for their children but they are inhibited by a low perception of control.

To examine independent and combined associations among objectively measured movement/non-movement behaviors (moderate-to-vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA), total sedentary time and sleep duration) and adiposity indicators in a sample of Canadian children.A cross-sectional study was conducted on 507 children aged 9-11 years from Ottawa, Canada. Movement/non-movement behaviors were assessed using an Actigraph GT3X+ accelerometer over 7 days (24-h protocol). Outcomes included percentage body fat (bioelectrical impedance) and waist-to-height ratio.After adjustment for age, sex, ethnicity, maturity offset, fast food consumption, annual household income and highest level of parental education, MVPA was inversely and sedentary time positively associated with adiposity indicators, whereas sleep duration was not. However, only MVPA remained significantly associated with adiposity indicators after additional adjustment for the other movement/non-movement behaviors. Combined associations using tertiles of the three movement/non-movement behaviors showed that higher levels of MVPA were associated with lower adiposity indicators, irrespective of total sedentary time and sleep duration.Higher levels of MVPA were associated with lower adiposity in this sample of children regardless of sedentary time and sleep duration. Although correlational in nature, these findings suggest that future efforts of obesity reduction should focus more on increasing MVPA than on reducing sedentary time or increasing sleep duration to maximize the effectiveness of interventions.

No abstract is provided for this article.

Purpose To inform future physical activity (PA) interventions among children, we investigated the correlates of PA among 8- to 12-yr-olds in three regions of Canada: Ottawa, Trois-Rivières, and Vancouver. Methods We recruited 1699 children (55.0% girls) in 37 schools located in urban, suburban, and rural areas that differed in socioeconomic status. Children wore a sealed SC-StepRx pedometer capable of measuring moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA) for seven consecutive days. Children and one of their parents/guardians completed a questionnaire that captured multiple potential PA correlates. Publicly available data on weather and neighborhood walkability were obtained. Multiply-imputed gender-stratified linear mixed models were used to examine the correlates of daily step counts and MVPA while controlling for age, site, type of urbanization, and area-level socioeconomic status. Results Each additional hour spent outdoors was associated with higher PA in boys (+769 steps per day; +3.7 min MVPA per day) and girls (+596 steps per day; +3.5 min·d −1 ). Boys’ PA declined with age (−500 steps per day; −3.7 min·d −1 ). Boys were less active if they had a long-standing injury/illness (−1862 steps per day; −3.7 min·d −1 ) or their parents reported driving to work (−835 steps per day; −4.4 min·d −1 ), were worried about traffic (−982 steps per day; −6.4 min·d −1 ), or about other people in their neighborhood (−1250 steps per day). Girls speaking neither English nor French at home were less active (−620 steps per day; −3.7 min·d −1 ). In girls, each degree Celsius increase in morning temperature was associated with 77 additional steps per day, and each kilometer increase in active school travel distance was associated with 0.5 more MVPA minutes per day. Conclusion Consistent with previous studies, our results suggest that PA interventions should aim to increase outdoor time. The observed gender differences in PA correlates suggest the need for a gender-sensitized approach to PA promotion.

Purpose Heterogeneity of descriptors and outcomes measured and reported in sedentary behaviour (SB) research hinder the meta-analysis of data and accumulation of evidence. The objective of the Core Research Outcomes for Sedentary Behaviour Interventions (CROSBI) consensus study was to identify and validate, a core outcome set (COS) to report (what, how, when to measure) in interventional sedentary behaviour studies. Methods Outcomes, extracted from a systematic literature review, were categorized into domains and data items (COS v0.0). International experts (n = 5) provided feedback and identified additional items, which were incorporated into COS v0.1. A two round online Delphi survey was conducted to seek consensus from a wider stakeholder group and outcomes that achieved consensus in the second round COS (v0.2), were ratified by the expert panel. Results The final COS (v1.0) contains 53 data items across 12 domains, relating to demographics, device details, wear-time criteria, wear-time measures, posture-related measures, sedentary breaks, sedentary bouts and physical activity. Notably, results indicate that sedentary behaviour outcomes should be measured by devices that include an inclinometry or postural function. Conclusions The proposed standardised COS is available openly to enhance the accumulation of pooled evidence in future sedentary behaviour intervention research and practice.

Background : Calls to action addressing the interconnections between physical (in)activity and the climate crisis are increasing. The current study aimed to investigate public support for policy actions that potentially have co-benefits for physical activity promotion and climate change mitigation. Methods : In 2023, a survey through the Angus Reid Forum was completed by 2507 adults living in Canada. Binary logistic regressions were conducted. Separate models were created to reflect support or opposition to the 8 included policy items. Several covariates were included in the models including age, gender, political orientation, physical activity levels, income, urbanicity climate anxiety, and attitudes surrounding physical activity and climate change. The data were weighted to reflect the gender, age, and regional composition of the country. Results : Most individuals living in Canada strongly or moderately supported all actions (ranging from 71% to 85%). Meeting the physical activity guidelines, higher self-reported income, and scoring high on personal experience of climate change were associated with higher odds of supporting the policy actions related to climate actions. Conclusions : Most adults living in Canada support policies that align with the recommended policy actions related to physical activity and climate change. National campaigns enhancing awareness and understanding of the bidirectional relationship between physical activity and climate change are warranted, and these should consider the consistent demographic differences (eg, gender, age, and political orientation) seen in public support for physical activity-related policies.