Active children use more locations for physical activity

We examined frequency of use of 11 physical activity (PA) locations among 539 San Diego children (45.0% males, 41.2% Latinos; mean +/- SD age: 6.6 +/- 0.7 years) and explored associations between location use, PA and potential correlates. Parents reported child's use (visits/week) of 11 locations. Child PA was assessed by accelerometry (subsample n = 178). The most frequently used locations (mean SD times/week) were homes (3.2 +/- 2.3) and parks/playground (1.6 +/- 1.3). Children used 4.0 +/- 2.0 locations in a typical week, and made a total of 12.5 +/- 6.8 visits/week to all locations. Latinos used fewer locations regularly (3.6 +/- 2.1 vs. 4.3 +/- 1.9 locations; p < 0.001) and had fewer visits to all locations (11.4 +/- 7.4 vs. 13.2 +/- 6.4 visits/week; p = 0.003) than non-Latinos. Accelerometry-assessed vigorous PA (VPA) was positively associated with the number of locations regularly used (beta = 0.04, p = 0.03) and total visits to all locations among Latinos (beta = 0.09, p = 0.005). Parental PA support was positively associated with locations used (beta = 0.64, p < 0.001) and visits to all locations (beta = 2.56, p < 0.001). Children using a greater variety of locations did more VPA. Latinos making more total visits to all locations had higher VPA. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.