Pedometer determined physical activity and obesity prevalence of Greek children aged 4-6 years.
BACKGROUND
Pre-school age is important for developing healthy attitudes towards physical activity (PA). However, research on pre-schoolers' pedometer-determined PA is limited.


AIM
To describe pre-schoolers' ambulatory activity; investigate step count differences in respect to Body Mass Index (BMI) categories and examine the prevalence of obesity.


SUBJECTS AND METHODS
Pre-school aged children (n = 250; 5.5 ± 0.4 years) from Komotini (Greece) wore Omron HJ-720IT-E2 pedometers for 10 consecutive days. Height and weight were measured and BMI was calculated.


RESULTS
Three-way repeated measures ANOVAs revealed that children performed more steps on weekdays than during weekends (p < 0.001) and during leisure time than school (p < 0.001). Significant differences appeared between normal and obese children's counts on weekdays (p < 0.001), weekend days (p < 0.05), during school (p < 0.001), after school (p < 0.005) and in weekly steps (p < 0.005). No gender differences were detected. Moreover, according to a sample t-test analysis, children's daily steps were significantly different from the 10,000 steps/day guideline, while obesity prevalence was 15.6%.


CONCLUSION
School-based ambulatory activity is lower than after school ambulatory activity, independent of BMI-category and gender, although obese children demonstrated fewer steps. Taking into account the high rate of both the obesity prevalence and children not meeting the 10,000 steps/day guideline, the need for preventive policies becomes obvious.
['Kambas|Antonis|A|', 'Venetsanou|Fotini|F|', 'Avloniti|Alexandra|A|', 'Giannakidou|Dimitra M|DM|', 'Gourgoulis|Vassilios|V|', 'Draganidis|Dimitrios|D|', 'Chatzinikolaou|Athanasios|A|', 'Fatouros|Ioannis|I|', 'Michalopoulou|Maria|M|']
D061725:Accelerometry D002648:Child D002675:Child, Preschool D005260:Female D006115:Greece D006801:Humans D008297:Male D009043:Motor Activity D009765:Obesity D015995:Prevalence
obesity Omron HJ-720IT-E2 Leisure-time preschoolers school-time