Children's physical activity and sedentary time, home and neighborhood environments in urban and rural areas.

The environments children live in, their home as well as their school and neighborhood environments, are likely to influence what they do and do not do. A library of research now suggests that such environments influence children's physical activities and sedentary behaviors. How -via what kind of causal pathways- such influences come about, is, however, certainly not well researched and thus not clear. In a study just published online in the scientific journal Health and Place, first authored by Prof. Jo Salmon, Deakin University, Melbourne, we studied associations of home and neighbourhood READI) study, i.e. a cohort of women (aged 18–45 years) and their children (5–12 years). 613 children and their mothers participated. Urban children had higher screen time (i.e. TV and computer time) than rural children. In rural areas access to physical activity equipment in the home was higher, and mothers set better examples for their children regarding PA, had better knowledge of the neighborhood, a stronger social network, and reported higher safety than urban mothers.  Among urban children, the importance of doing PA together as a family was positively associated with ST. Interventions targeting PA and ST may need to target different factors according to urban/rural location.
environments with children's physical activity (PA), and sedentary time (ST). We also investigated if such associations were different for children living in urban vs. rural locations. Data were from the the Resilience for Eating and Activity Despite Inequality (