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Published on: June 20, 2020
Time use clusters in children and their associations with sociodemographic factors
Wendy Y Huang1, Stephen H Wong2
1Department of Physical Education, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong 00852, Hong Kong.
Insights
Childhood sedentariness is multidimensional, not a single behavior. Identifying specific clusters of sedentary behaviors and physical activity in Chinese children is key for developing targeted interventions. This research highlights the need for tailored approaches based on distinct time-use patterns.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric health
- Behavioral science
- Public health
Background:
- Understanding children's time use is crucial for effective intervention development.
- Sedentary behaviors and physical activity patterns are key indicators of child health.
- Previous research often treats sedentariness as a singular behavior, potentially oversimplifying complex time-use patterns.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the clustering of sedentary behaviors and physical activity in Chinese children.
- To examine associations between sociodemographic factors and identified time-use clusters.
- To inform the development of targeted interventions for youth physical activity and sedentary behavior.
Main Methods:
- Cross-sectional survey of 1013 Chinese children aged 9-13 years.
- Cluster analysis applied to time-use data, including physical activity and sedentary behaviors.
- Validated questionnaire used for assessment; sociodemographic variables compared across clusters.
Main Results:
- Five distinct clusters identified for both boys and girls, with varying proportions.
- Boy clusters: 'Actives', 'Inactives', 'Sedentary homeworkers', 'Sedentary TV viewers', 'Sedentary games players'.
- Girl clusters: 'Actives', 'Uninvolved inactives', 'Sedentary homeworkers', 'Sedentary TV viewers', 'Sedentary Games players'. Parental education differed across boy clusters.
Conclusions:
- Sedentariness in youth is multidimensional and cannot be accurately represented by a single behavior.
- Interventions to reduce sedentary behaviors should be tailored to specific clusters.
- Recognizing distinct time-use patterns is essential for effective public health strategies in children.
Background:
Understanding patterns of time use of children is helpful in developing target-tailored intervention. The purpose of this study was to investigate the clustering of sedentary behaviours and physical activity in Chinese children and to examine the associations between sociodemographic factors and the time use clusters.
Methods:
Cluster analysis was conducted among 1013 Chinese children aged 9-13 years (49.5% boys) recruited in a cross-sectional survey study. Physical activity and sedentary behaviours were assessed using a validated questionnaire. Differences in sociodemographic variables were compared across the clusters.
Results:
Five clusters were identified for boys and girls, respectively. For boys, the five clusters were labelled 'Actives' (9.1%), 'Inactives' (59.4%), 'Sedentary homeworkers' (4.7%), 'Sedentary TV viewers' (16.6%) and 'Sedentary games players' (10.2%). For girls, they were labelled 'Actives' (11.9%), 'Uninvolved inactives' (39.6%), 'Sedentary homeworkers' (11.3%), 'Sedentary TV viewers' (8.5%) and 'Sedentary Games players' (28.8%). Only parental education was found to differ across the five clusters in boys.
Conclusions:
The findings demonstrated that sedentariness in youth is multidimensional, and it could not be accurately represented by singular behaviour. There is a potential need when designing specific interventions to reduce a group of sedentary behaviours to tailor these interventions for specific clusters.
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