The effects of increasing outdoor play time on physical activity in Latino preschool children

Objective. A randomized controlled pilot study to test the hypothesis that increasing preschool children's outdoor free play time increases their daily physical activity levels. Methods. Physical activity was assessed by accelerometers for four consecutive school days in thirty-two Latino children (3.6±0.5 years) attending a preschool for low-income families. After two days of baseline physical activity assessment, participants were randomly assigned to an intervention (RECESS; n =17) or control (CON; n =15) group. The RECESS group received two additional 30-minute periods of outdoor free play time per day for two days. The CON group followed their normal classroom schedule. Between group differences in physical activity variables were tested with a Wilcoxon rank-sum test. Results. There were no statistically significant differences between groups in changes from baseline in average total daily (CON, 48.2±114.5; RECESS, 58.2±74.6) and during school day (CON, 64.6±181.9; RECESS, 59.7±79.1) counts per minute, or total daily (CON, 0.4±1.3; RECESS, 0.3±0.8) and during school day (CON, 0.6±2.1; RECESS, 0.5±0.8) percent of time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity. Conclusions. Substantially increasing preschoolers’ outdoor free play time did not increase their physical activity levels.

Trial registration name: clinicaltrials.gov Registration number: NCT00285792