'Urgent invite': Camden Borough Active Spaces Project

体育活动对年轻人的健康有益。建议年轻人每天至少进行一小时中等强度的体育活动，以保持身体健康。然而，只有24%的英国女孩和32%的英国男孩达到了这一建议，这在一定程度上与英国肥胖水平的上升有关。研究发现，在校儿童平日的体育活动在上学期间是最低的。许多以学校为基础的干预措施都集中在体育课上，试图提高活动水平，但通常都不成功。环境既刺激又提供了体育活动的场所，尽管目前还没有多少研究表明改变学校的物理环境是否会影响儿童的活动水平。卡姆登自治市议会将重新设计六个现有的学校操场，配备令人兴奋的定制功能，让孩子们变得更加活跃。潜在的目标是通过整合传统体育或团队竞争无法激发的活动的潜力来鼓励动机。这提供了一个独特的机会来评估这些结构对身体活动、参与、健康和学习成绩的影响。建筑工程将在今年的学校假期进行。测量儿童的身体活动具有挑战性，而且往往依赖于不可靠的家长报告等替代措施。在过去的十年里，随着小型可穿戴运动传感器的引入，身体活动的测量已经发生了革命性的变化，现在我们能够以低成本客观地评估长时间的运动。我们建议从六所学校的相似年级中随机选择大约80名学生（总样本量约为480人），并在干预前后的三个不同时间点（2014年春季/夏季学期；2014年秋季学期；2015年夏季学期）使用加速度计收集他们的客观体育活动数据。反复进行后续评估将使我们能够检查短期影响是否会持续更长时间。我们还将收集孩子的心理和身体健康数据（如体重指数），以及学业成绩指标。

Physical activity is beneficial for the health of young people. It is recommended that young people engage in physical activity of moderate intensity for at least one hour a day, to maintain good health. However, just 24% of British girls and 32% of boys achieve this recommendation, which has been partly linked to the rise in obesity levels across the UK.Studies have found that weekday physical activity in school children is lowest when they are at school. Numerous school-based interventions have focused on physical education lessons in an attempt to increase activity levels, but have generally been unsuccessful. Environments both stimulate and provide the arena for physical activity although there is limited research to show if changing the physical environment at school influences activity levels in children. Camden Borough Council will be re-designing six existing school playgrounds with exciting bespoke features to engage children to become more active. The underlying goal is to encourage motivation by integrating potential for activities that are not motivated by traditional sports or by team competition. This presents a unique opportunity to evaluate the impact of these structures on physical activity, engagement, wellbeing, and academic performance. The building work will be undertaken in the school holidays of this year.Measuring physical activity in children is challenging and often relies on proxy measures such as parent-report that can be unreliable. In the last decade the measurement of physical activity has been revolutionised with the introduction of small wearable motion sensors that now enables us to assess movement objectively over prolonged periods at low cost.We propose to randomly select approximately 80 pupils from similar year groups from each of the six schools (total sample size~ 480) and collect objective physical activity data from them, using an accelerometer, at three different time points before and after the intervention (Spring/summer term 2014; Autumn term 2014; summer term 2015). Taking repeated follow up assessments would allow us to examine if short term effects are sustained over a longer period. We will also collect data on the child's mental and physical health (such as body mass index), and markers of academic performance.