Parents key to keeping children moving

The crucial difference in children's activity lay in how much they did outside school. Picture / Martin Sykes

A new study has found school-driven physical activity is keeping children active, while parents need to do more to get youngsters off the couch.

With the aid of pedometers, Auckland University of Technology PhD scholar Michele Cox studied the number of steps 91 children at St Mary's School in Northcote took during and after school on a regular school day.

Overall, the children exceeded the recommended guidelines for their age. On average, boys racked up 2600 steps above their 13,000 guideline, and the girls took 2000 steps more than the 11,000 recommended.

The most active children did most of their physical activity outside school, but the reverse was true for the least active group.

"This makes sense given there is a ceiling on the amount of physical activity a child can do within a school's structured physical education classes, organised sport and breaks," said Ms Cox.

"Parents need to recognise this and take responsibility for getting their children moving and not load it on to schools and say, 'you do it'."

The children, aged between 5 and 11 years, wore pedometers for three consecutive days. Measurements were taken before school started and at the end of the school day.

While the children on average exceeded the recommended guidelines, extremely high levels of activity in some children masked a group of sedentary counterparts. Measurements ranged from 7000 to 26,000 steps.

"You look at that and you go 'wow, we're fantastic'," said Ms Cox. "But our ranges were wider than even some of the most inactive nations. That's saying to us that we might be seen as a really active nation but there's a group of kids sitting at the bottom who are really of a huge concern.

"We still need to be promoting physical activity because those kids at the bottom are really serious couch potatoes."

St Mary's principal Paul Engles said the school incorporated various forms of physical activity during and just before school hours.

One feature in the decile 7 school was the twice-weekly Jump Jam, when students took part in physical movement to music.

Mr Engles said there were also school sports teams, which trained after school. Those required parents to contribute some of their time, he said.

"We have them for a maximum of six hours in a day and we do 48 per cent of the work. Proportionately schools do an awful lot."

Wesley Intermediate principal Nigel Davis estimated his school dedicated about three hours a week to physical activity, with the rest spent on class work.

"As we're a decile 1 school, we can't afford for the kids to miss out on maths and reading time."

But physical activity is incorporated in other ways in the Mt Roskill school.

Lunchtime sees every teacher involved in taking a sport, and some teachers hold sports training before school at 8am.

The school also has active school sport teams, which most of its 164 students are involved in. Last year, the school won all but one inter-school competition it entered in, said Mr Davis.

Ms Cox's next study will look at who parents, schools and children think are responsible for encouraging their physical activity.