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Investigating longitudinal context-specific physical activity patterns in transition from primary to secondary school
Teun Remmers1,2, Dave Van Kann3,4, Stef Kremers4
1School of Sport Studies, Fontys University of Applied Sciences, P.O. Box 347, Eindhoven, AH, 5600, The Netherlands. t.remmers@fontys.nl.
Summary
Physical activity significantly declines during the school transition from primary to secondary school, especially in afterschool hours. This highlights the need for targeted interventions to maintain children's activity levels during this critical period.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric physical activity research
- Adolescent health behavior
- School transition studies
Background:
- Physical activity (PA) significantly declines from primary to secondary school.
- Understanding the mechanisms driving this decline is crucial for intervention development.
- Contextually rich data on PA patterns during this transition is needed.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate changes in physical activity (PA) patterns during the primary to secondary school transition.
- To provide domain-specific insights into how, where, and when these PA changes occur.
- To identify factors influencing PA during this critical developmental period.
Main Methods:
- 175 children wore accelerometers and GPS devices for 7 days in their final primary and first secondary school year.
- Geographical Information Systems (GIS) were used to identify PA locations (home, school, sports grounds, etc.) and transport modes.
- Longitudinal multi-level linear mixed models analyzed changes in light and moderate-to-vigorous PA across different time segments (before/during/after school, weekends).
Main Results:
- Total physical activity (PA) significantly decreased from primary to secondary school.
- Transport-related PA increased before and during school.
- Significant decreases were observed in afterschool PA at sports grounds and weekend transport-related PA.
Conclusions:
- This study provides the first longitudinal, device-assessed data on context- and domain-specific PA changes during the primary-to-secondary school transition.
- Results emphasize the need for evidence-based PA programs targeting this transition, involving schools, parents, and sports providers.
- Interventions should focus on increasing PA in primary schools, promoting afterschool PA in secondary schools, and preventing sports dropout.
