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
. 2021 Apr:43:101308.
doi: 10.1016/j.eujim.2021.101308. Epub 2021 Feb 9.

Effect of the COVID-19 lockdown on physical activity and sedentary behaviors in French children and adolescents: New results from the ONAPS national survey

C Chambonniere  1   2 , C Lambert  3   4 , N Fearnbach  5 , M Tardieu  3 , A Fillon  3 , P Genin  3 , B Larras  3 , P Melsens  3 , J Bois  3   6 , B Pereira  3   4 , A Tremblay  3   7 , D Thivel  1   3 , M Duclos  2   3   8   9
Affiliations

Effect of the COVID-19 lockdown on physical activity and sedentary behaviors in French children and adolescents: New results from the ONAPS national survey

C Chambonniere et al. Eur J Integr Med. 2021 Apr.

Abstract

Introduction: In France March 14, 2020 a national lockdown was imposed in France for 55 days to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and all schools were closed. This study aimed to investigate the effects of home confinement as a result of lockdown on the activity (physical activity and sedentary behaviors), and their determinants, on French children (6-10 years) and adolescents (11-17 years).

Methods: The National Observatory for Physical Activity and Sedentary behaviors launched an online survey from April 1st, to May 6th, 2020 using popular social networks and websites. It compared the level of physical activity (PA), sitting and screen time before and during the lockdown and identified the impact of the initial PA (active vs. inactive), sedentary (high vs. low) profiles of the participants and their housing conditions.

Results: 6,491 children were included in this study. Initially active children and adolescents decreased their PA more than those initially inactive (p>0.001), while those who met the sitting time recommendations increased more their sitting time during lockdown (p<0.001). The same applied to screen time (p<0.001). Living in an urban environment was associated with a decrease in PA (p<0.001), an increase in sitting time (p<0.001) and children's screen time (p=0.002) during lockdown.

Conclusion: This study showed the deleterious effects of confinement caused by lockdown on physical activity and sedentary behaviors. Housing conditions were associated with lifestyle behaviors over this period of lockdown. Future public health policies should consider these results.

Keywords: Adolescents; COVID-19; Children; Housing; Lockdown; Physical activity; Screen time; Sedentary behaviors.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Worldometer Number of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) deaths worldwide as of February 1, 2021, by country. Statista. 2021 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1093256/novel-coronavirus-2019ncov-d... (accessed February 1, 2021)
    1. Duan L., Zhu G. Psychological interventions for people affected by the COVID-19 epidemic. Lancet Psychiatry. 2020;7:300–302. doi: 10.1016/S2215-0366(20)30073-0. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Nguyen H.C., Nguyen M.H., Do B.N., Tran C.Q., Nguyen T.T.P., Pham K.M., Pham L.V., Tran K.V., Duong T.T., Tran T.V., Duong T.H., Nguyen T.T., Nguyen Q.H., Hoang T.M., Nguyen K.T., Pham T.T.M., Yang S.-H., Chao J.C.-J., Duong T.V. People with suspected COVID-19 symptoms were more likely depressed and had lower health-related quality of life: the potential benefit of health literacy. J. Clin. Med. 2020;9:965. doi: 10.3390/jcm9040965. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. J.M. Alves, A.G. Yunker, A. DeFendis, A.H. Xiang, K.A. Page, Associations between affect, physical activity, and anxiety among US children during COVID-19, MedRxiv. (2020) 2020.10.20.20216424. 10.1101/2020.10.20.20216424. - PubMed
    1. Carriedo A., Cecchini J.A., Fernández-Río J., Méndez-Giménez A. Resilience and physical activity in people under home isolation due to COVID-19: a preliminary evaluation. Ment. Health Phys. Act. 2020;19 doi: 10.1016/j.mhpa.2020.100361. - DOI - PMC - PubMed