Electronic Devices as Correlates of Sedentary Behavior and Screen Time Among Diverse Low-Income Adolescents During the School Year and Summer Time

Electronic Devices as Correlates of Sedentary Behavior and Screen Time Among Diverse Low-Income Adolescents During the School Year and Summer Time By: James F. Sallis, Terry L. Conway, Kelli L. Cain, Carrie Geremia, Edith Bonilla, Chad Spoon, University of California San Diego Since 2001 the American Academy of Pediatrics has …

Differences in child physical activity levels at rural Play Streets due to activity type and sex

Differences in child physical activity levels at rural Play Streets due to activity type and sex By: Tyler M. Prochnow, M. Renée Umstattd Meyer, and Christina N. Bridges Hamilton from Baylor University; and Keshia M. Pollack Porter from Johns Hopkins University Physical activity is linked with promoting health and preventing …

Parental preference for part attributes related to children’s use of parks in low-income, racial/ethnic diverse neighborhoods

Parental preference for part attributes related to children’s use of parks in low-income, racial/ethnic diverse neighborhoods By: Scott Ogletree, Jing Huei Huang, Claudia Alberico, Myron F. Floyd, and J Aaron Hipp, North Carolina State University; Oriol Marquet, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Parks can be an important place for children’s physical …

Infographic: Youth advocacy program for physical activity and health

The Youth Engagement and Action for Health (YEAH!) project works nationally with African American, American Indian, Latino, Asian, and Pacific Islander lower-income urban/rural middle schoolers to take an in-depth look at their neighborhood’s strengths and weaknesses that are most likely to affect physical activity. Using a group-based program curriculum that …

Infographic: Physical Activity and Recreation in Children in Communities of Color

Public parks represent key settings for promoting physical activity among children who are least likely to be active and most likely to be overweight or obese. Describing park use patterns among different racial and ethnic groups, particularly in low-income neighborhoods, can inform planning decisions on how to meet diverse recreation …

Infographic: Youth Physical Activity in Summer Patterns and Disparities

Adolescents have lower levels of physical activity (PA) and more rapid weight gain during summertime when they are not attending school. African American and Latino youth gain more weight in the summer than do youth from other racial or ethnic groups. Given disparities in summer weight gain, it is important …

Infographic: Rural Play Streets Guide

Infographic: Rural Play Streets Guide

Play Streets — place-based interventions that involve temporarily closing streets to create safe places and free opportunities for physical activity — are a great way to engage youth and families, get people active, and promote community connections.

The Guide to Implementing Play Streets in Rural Communities provides guidance and recommendations to community groups, schools, faith-based institutions, or other organizations, on how to plan and put on a Play Street in rural communities based on first-hand experience from community partners in rural Maryland, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Share with your community

This infographic highlights how Play Streets can provide families who live in rural communities access to safe places for their kids to be active.

We encourage you to download and share the infographic with your community partners and networks.

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2017 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) Data Released

2017 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) Data Released

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has provided the below highlights from the data on nutrition, physical activity and chronic conditions.

The 2017 YRBSS examines overall trends in 121 health-related behaviors of students in grades 9-12 plus obesity, overweight, and asthma. 

Most high school students are not meeting the recommended guidelines for daily physical activity.

  • Seventy four percent of high school students are not getting 60 minutes or more of physical activity per day.
  • Fifty percent more students are spending three or more hours per day playing video games or spending leisure time on a computer than getting at least one hour of physical activity. This includes using smartphones and tablets but does not include additional time spent watching tv. The prevalence was higher among black (47.2%) and Hispanic (45.4%) than white (40.7%) students.

There is room for improvement in healthy eating for students and large racial disparities exist.

  • There is a slight decrease from 2015 (57.8%) in students that had at least one sports drink the week before the survey, but 52.3% of students had at least one that week.
  • Forty percent of high school students are not eating even one vegetable each day. The prevalence of not having eaten vegetables one or more times per day was higher among black students (50.6%) than Hispanic (43.9%) or white (37.2%) students
  • Not enough students are starting their day ready to learn with only 35.3% of students eating breakfast every day. The prevalence of having daily breakfast was higher for white students (38.1%) than black (28.7%) or Hispanic (31.7%) students.

Obesity and overweight remains high among high school students and racial disparities persist.

  • More than one-third of students had obesity or were overweight (30.4%). The prevalence of obesity or overweight was higher among Hispanic (37.7%) and black (36%) students than white (26.5%) students.
  • Nationwide, 47.1% of students were trying to lose weight. The prevalence of trying to lose weight was higher among Hispanic (55.4%) than white (45.1%) and black (42.3%) students.

A majority of high school students are still not getting enough sleep at night.

  • Seventy-four percent of students are not getting recommended 8 hours of sleep each night.
  • The prevalence of getting 8 or more hours of sleep was higher among 9th-grade (34.8%) than 10th-grade (26.6%), 11th-grade (21.4%), and 12th-grade (17.6%).

Many students come to school with a health condition, like asthma, and they need help managing it.

  • Twenty two and a half percent (22.5%) of students have been diagnosed with asthma by a health care provider.
  • The prevalence of having ever been told by a health care provider that they have asthma was higher among black (29.8%) than white (20.9%) and Hispanic (21.1%) students

Schools have a unique and important role to play in addressing the health-related behaviors of all students. Schools can:

  • Teach and provide students with opportunities to improve their dietary and physical activity behaviors to establish lifelong habits.
  • Provide healthy and enriching alternatives to screen-time (playing video games, watching TV, using smartphones and tablets) through beneficial afterschool options.
  • Support healthy sleep for students by adopting later start times for high school.
  • Support student health, learning and attendance by providing case management and adopting policies to help students manage conditions, like asthma, at school.

View all of the YRBSS results here.

Value of the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research

Value of the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research

-Jim Sallis, Co-Director of PARC

The National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) has been a leading force in the field since 2009. A successful example of public-private partnership among the main federal and foundation funders of health research, NCCOR has coordinated funding of studies, development of resources, capacity building, and dissemination of results. As presented in new papers in American Journal of Preventive Medicine, NCCOR has many accomplishments that have advanced research and provided assistance to practitioners.

I have had the pleasure of serving on the National Expert Scientific Panel since the beginning of NCCOR, so I am not a disinterested observer. However, I have been impressed by the level of collaboration among the funders, their openness to input, and the creativity of their projects. I was pleased to provide a commentary on the impact of NCCOR over the first eight years. It is likely that many people actively involved in childhood obesity work are not aware of the full range of NCCOR’s projects and resources. I commend this special section to everyone looking for solutions to the childhood obesity epidemic. Many of the resources will also be relevant to anyone working on physical activity and healthy eating in any population.