An abstract of “Physical Activity Among Children Attending Preschools” is available online from Pediatrics.
Preschool children aren’t getting enough physical exercise, a new study concludes.
The study, conducted by researchers at the University of South Carolina-Columbia, found that preschool children were engaging in less than an hour of school-based physical activity a day.
Researchers tracked the activity levels of 281 children from nine preschools in Columbia, including Head Start and privately operated programs. For roughly four hours a day, the children wore accelerometers, devices that tracked their activity levels.
The results, published in the November issue of Pediatrics, showed that the preschoolers engaged in an average of 7.7 minutes an hour of moderate to vigorous physical activity. The study also found that boys were more likely than girls to engage in physical activities.
