Child Care Centers Lack Sufficient Outdoor Activity

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Main Category: Pediatrics / Children's Health
Also Included In: Sports Medicine / Fitness
Article Date: 13 Jan 2012 - 10:00 PST

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A study led by Kristen Copeland, MD, division of General and Community Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Faculty Scholar reveals that, many of the three quarters of preschool-age children in the U.S. who attend child care get insufficient outdoor physical activity.

According to the study, this may partially be due to societal and parental values regarding kindergarten readiness and injury prevention. The study entitled "Societal Values and Policies May Curtail Preschool Children's Physical Activity in Child Care Centers," appeared online January 4 and will be published in the February 2012 issue of Pediatrics.

A focus-group investigation of 53 child care providers from 34 child care centers in Cincinnati was conducted by the researchers in order to analyze their opinions of potential obstacles in physical activity among children in child care.

Three primary obstacles to children's physical activity were identified:

• Financial limitations
• Injury worries
• more focus on academics than outdoor activities

Dr. Copeland explained that these barriers to physical activity in child care may limit children's only chance to participate in physical activity as several children spend all day in care and do not have a safe area to play near their home.

According to the child care providers interviewed, at times they were asked by parents to keep their children from taking part in vigorous outdoor activities in order to prevent them from being injured. They explained they felt under pressure from parents to keep children inside to avoid injuries.

In addition, child care providers said that playgrounds are less physically challenging and interesting to children due to recent stricter licensing codes. Although the new play equipment was safe, the children became bored as they mastered it quickly, as a result they began using the equipment in unsafe ways, such as walking up the slide, the teachers said.

Copeland explained:

"Child care providers mentioned that they appreciate having state inspections of their playground equipment and strict licensing codes because it helped them feel confident about the safety of the equipment.

But several of them expressed how overly strict standards had rendered some of the equipment unchallenging and uninteresting to the children, which hampered the children's physical activity."

In addition, the researchers found that teachers felt pressure from both upper- and lower-income parents and early-learning state standards to pay more attention on academics than physical outdoor activities.

Copeland said:

"Several of the care providers agreed with this goal in principle, but they also recognize that children learned through active play and that the energy release and creative stimulation of outdoor activities helped place children in a better mindset to learn and concentrate later either indoors or outdoors.

We were surprised to find such a strong focus on academics for children as young as 3-years old. At this age, most children don't know how to skip, they are still learning how to share and negotiate peer relationships. Yet teachers told us that many parents wanted to know what their child 'learned' that day, but were no interested if whether they had gone outside, or had mastered fundamental gross motor skills."

Several child care providers said financial limitations prevented them from providing the children with optimal physical activity opportunities. Tight budgets were the reason many centers could not afford equipment for the children to play on.

However, according to Copeland:

"There are plenty of things centers can do to encourage physical activity that cost little to no money - such as putting on a dance CD, taking nature walks, running races on the playground, or learning how to skip."

These findings indicate that the balance of the priorities of injury prevention and kindergarten readiness may need to be reset with physical activity promotion.

Copeland said:

"Given that childhood obesity is a national epidemic and a major cause of childhood morbidity, and that time in child care may be the child's only opportunity for outdoor play, licensing standards may need to explicitly promote physical activity in as much detail as is devoted to safety.

An important message from this study is that well-intentioned policies may have unintended consequences for preschool-age children's physical development.

Daily physical activity is essential for preschool-age children's development and for preventing obesity, yet parents' and teachers' concerns about injury and school-readiness may be keeping children from being physically active. In essence, in ensuring that young children are smart and safe, we may also be keeping them sedentary."

Written by Grace Rattue
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

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