Background/Purpose Over the past decade there have been numerous efforts to identify how many steps/day children should accumulate. Recommendations range from 10,000 to 16,500 steps/day. Very little attention has been paid to identifying how many children are meeting these various steps/day recommendations. Purpose: To examine the percentage of elementary school age children meeting seven different sets of steps/day recommendations.
Method Eight hundred and twenty-nine Southwestern USA children (400 boys, BMI 19.7±4.2; 429 girls, BMI 19.1±4.1) wore the Yamax Digiwalker SW-200 pedometer and recorded their steps/day for 7 consecutive days. Students' ethnic backgrounds included 44% Caucasian, 36% Hispanic, 10% African-American, 5% Native American 4% Asian-Pacific Islander, and 1% other.
Analysis/Results Mean steps/day was calculated and the percentage of students meeting each of the steps/day recommendations was determined. Fifty-six percent of all children met a minimum of 10,000 steps/day. Thirty-nine percent met the 11,000/13,000 steps/day for girls/boys recommended by Vincent and Pangrazi (2002). Using BMI referenced cutpoints, 32% met Rowlands (2005), 15% met Duncan (2007), 47% met Laurson (2008), and 9% met Craig (2010). Lastly, using the graduated step index (Tudor-Locke, 2008) 46% of children were classified as at least moderately active.
Conclusions Conclusions about meeting recommendations differed by standard used. Still, only 56% of children met the lowest standard considered and only 39% of children qualified for the Presidential Active Lifestyle award based on the Vincent and Pangrazi standard. Although a consensus recommendation would be useful, greater efforts are nonetheless needed to increase more children's physical activity levels.
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