Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2013 Aug 21;3(8):e002893.
doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2013-002893.

How active are our children? Findings from the Millennium Cohort Study

Lucy J Griffiths  1 , Mario Cortina-Borja, Francesco Sera, Theodora Pouliou, Marco Geraci, Carly Rich, Tim J Cole, Catherine Law, Heather Joshi, Andrew R Ness, Susan A Jebb, Carol Dezateux
Affiliations

How active are our children? Findings from the Millennium Cohort Study

Lucy J Griffiths et al. BMJ Open. .

Abstract

Objective: To describe levels of physical activity, sedentary time and adherence to Chief Medical Officers (CMO) physical activity guidelines among primary school-aged children across the UK using objective accelerometer-based measurements.

Design: Nationally representative prospective cohort study.

Setting: Children born across the UK, between 2000 and 2002.

Participants: 6497 7-year-old to 8-year-old singleton children for whom reliable accelerometer data were available for at least 10 h a day for at least 2 days.

Main outcome measures: Physical activity in counts per minute (cpm); time spent in sedentary and moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA); proportion of children meeting CMO guidelines (≥60 min/day MVPA); average daily steps.

Explanatory measures: Gender, ethnicity, maternal current/most recent occupation, lone parenthood status, number of children in the household and country/region of residence.

Results: The median daily physical activity level was 595 cpm (IQR 507, 697). Children spent a median of 60 min (IQR 47-76) in MVPA/day and were sedentary for a median of 6.4 h/day (IQR 6-7). Only 51% met CMO guidelines, with girls (38%) less active than boys (63%). Children took an average of 10 229 (95% CI (8777 to 11 775)) steps each day. Children of Indian ethnicity were significantly less active overall than all other ethnic groups. Children of Bangladeshi origin and those living in Northern Ireland were least likely to meet CMO guidelines.

Conclusions: Only half of 7-year-old children in the UK achieve recommended levels of physical activity, with significant gender, ethnic and geographic variations. Longitudinal studies are needed to better understand the relevance of these (in)activity patterns for long-term health and well-being. In the meantime population-wide efforts to boost physical activity among young people are needed which are likely to require a broad range of policy interventions.

Keywords: Paediatrics; Public Health; Sports Medicine.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow diagram of study participants.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Median minutes/day of moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity by gender and ethnicity adjusting by season of measurement.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Prevalence of children meeting physical activity recommendation of ≥60 min/day moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity (%).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Hills AP, Andersen LB, Byrne NM. Physical activity and obesity in children. Br J Sports Med 2011;45:866–70 - PubMed
    1. Owen CG, Nightingale CM, Rudnicka AR, et al. Physical activity, obesity and cardiometabolic risk factors in 9- to 10-year-old UK children of white European, South Asian and black African-Caribbean origin: the Child Heart and Health Study in England (CHASE). Diabetologia 2010;53:1620–30 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Tobias JH, Steer CD, Mattocks CG, et al. Habitual levels of physical activity influence bone mass in 11-year-old children from the United Kingdom: findings from a large population-based cohort. J Bone Miner Res 2007;22:101–9 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ekeland E, Heian F, Hagen KB. Can exercise improve self esteem in children and young people? A systematic review of randomised controlled trials. Br J Sports Med 2005;39:792–8 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ekelund U, Brage S, Froberg K, et al. TV viewing and physical activity are independently associated with metabolic risk in children: the European Youth Heart Study. PLoS Med 2006;3:e488. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources