Moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity during school hours in a representative sample of 10-11-year-olds in Scotland

Objectives: Growing concern about children and adolescent physical inactivity has made the promotion of phys-ical activity a public health priority. International recommendations suggest children should accumulate at least 30 min of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) during school hours. This study assessed levels of objectively-measured MVPA in a large nationally representative sample of Scottish children aged 10-11. Risk fac-tors for not meeting the school-hours MVPA recommendation were examined. Design: Cross-sectional. Methods: Mean time spent in MVPA during school hours across five weekdays was measured using Actigraph ac-celerometry (May 2015-May 2016). Binary logistic regression, presented as odds ratio (O.R.) and confidence in-tervals (C.I.), explored associations between meeting/not meeting the recommendation by sex, socioeconomic status (SES), season, and urban/rural residence in 2022. Results: Valid data were obtained from 773 children (53.9% girls, 46.1% boys) from 471 schools. Mean daily school-hours MVPA was 29 (SD 11) minutes; 42.7% of children reached the recommendation. The odds of girls (O.R. 0.43; C.I. 0.32, 0.57) meeting the recommendation was significantly lower (p < 0.001) compared to boys. Children living in rural areas had higher odds (O.R. 1.49; C.I. 1.04, 2.15) of meeting the recommendation com-pared with those in urban areas (p = 0.032). No significant differences in meeting the recommendation by SES (p = 0.700). The overall trend for season was significant (p < 0.001), with lower odds of meeting the recom-mendation in winter compared to summer. Conclusions: Most Scottish children aged 10-11 did not meet the 30 minute MVPA recommendation. Interven-tions to increase MVPA during school hours are essential to promote public health. (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Sports Medicine Australia. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).