Environmental and social influences on physical activity

环境和社会对身体活动的影响

• 批准号: G0501294/1
• 负责人: Simon Griffin
• 金额: $ 50.87万
• 依托单位: Medical Research Council
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2006 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=G0501294%2F1
• 关键词: Environmental; social; influences; physical; activity

Obesity in both children and adults is becoming increasingly common in this and other developed countries. Although the precise causes remain unclear, evidence suggests that even fairly small changes in physical activity could help to reverse this damaging trend. Physical activity also reduces risks of heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis and even some cancers. Unfortunately, levels of activity appear to be decreasing in adults and may also be in children, although there is surprisingly little information available to confirm this. Approaches to increase activity, for example exercise prescriptions from the family doctor, have had limited success. There are many reasons put forward as to why people are inactive and what could be done to encourage activity. These cover such diverse areas as government policy concerning transport through to availability of school playing fields, sports facilities and a pleasant neighbourhood. Some are more easily altered than others. Before making potentially unhelpful and expensive recommendations it is useful to know how sedentary adults and children actually are and which factors (psychological, cultural, environmental and so on) are most strongly associated with inactivity. It would then be logical to target some of these factors in an effort to increase activity.We propose to measure physical activity in adult volunteers by questionnaire and in 9-10 year old school children by questionnaire and also by using a matchbox sized device called an accelerometer worn on the waist which measures movement rather like a pedometer. The questionnaires will also assess a range of volunteer characteristics thought to be associated with activity including perceptions of the environment. In addition we will assess the built environment eg school and neighbourhood using both direct observation and a geographical information system that contains data on factors such as street lighting, garden size and traffic levels. This will enable the measures of physical activity and the assessment of the environment to be linked for each volunteer. We then plan to interview families to identify the barriers and opportunities to promoting physical activity. Finally we will present the results to interested groups with responsibility for health, children and the environment such as school governors, head teachers, Norfolk Children?s Services and also Cambridge Horizons, Local Authorities and the East of England Development Agency who are responsible for delivering nearly 50,000 new homes and #2.2billion of support infrastructure in the wider vicinity of Cambridge by 2016.

在这个国家和其他发达国家，儿童和成人肥胖正变得越来越普遍。尽管确切的原因尚不清楚，但有证据表明，即使是相当小的体力活动变化，也可能有助于扭转这一破坏性的趋势。体育锻炼还可以降低心脏病、糖尿病、骨质疏松症甚至某些癌症的风险。不幸的是，成年人的活动水平似乎在下降，儿童也可能如此，尽管令人惊讶的是，几乎没有可用的信息来证实这一点。增加运动量的方法，例如家庭医生开出的锻炼处方，收效甚微。关于人们为什么不活动以及可以做些什么来鼓励活动，人们提出了许多理由。这些措施涵盖了各种各样的领域，如政府关于交通的政策，以及学校运动场、体育设施和宜人的社区的供应。有些比其他的更容易修改。在提出可能无益和昂贵的建议之前，了解成年人和儿童实际久坐的情况以及哪些因素(心理、文化、环境等)与不运动最相关是很有用的。那么，针对这些因素中的一些因素来努力增加运动量是合乎逻辑的。我们建议通过问卷测量成年志愿者的体力活动，并通过问卷测量9-10岁学龄儿童的体力活动，也可以使用腰部佩戴的火柴盒大小的加速度计来测量运动，这种设备测量的速度很像计步器。调查问卷还将评估一系列被认为与活动有关的志愿者特征，包括对环境的看法。此外，我们将使用直接观察和包含街道照明、花园大小和交通水平等因素的地理信息系统来评估建筑环境，例如学校和社区。这将使每个志愿人员的体力活动措施与环境评估相联系。然后，我们计划采访家庭，以确定促进体育活动的障碍和机会。最后，我们将把结果提交给对健康、儿童和环境负有责任的感兴趣的团体，如学校校长、校长、诺福克儿童？S服务以及剑桥地平线、地方当局和英格兰东部发展署，他们负责在2016年前在剑桥附近交付近50,000套新住房和22亿英镑的支持基础设施。