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Physical Activity and Socioenvironmental Factors in Students

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A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2021) | Viewed by 33242

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. José Devís-Devís, PhD

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Guest Editor

AFES Research Group, Departament d’Educació Física I Esportiva, Universitat de València, C/ Gascó Oliag 3, 46010 Valencia, Spain
Interests: physical activity; vulnerable groups; physical education

Prof. Carmen Peiró-Velert, PhD

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Guest Editor

AFES Research Group, Departament de Didàctica de l’Expressió Musical, Plàstica i Corporal, Universitat de València, Av. Els Tarongers 4, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Interests: health-related physical education; motivation; physical activity; active lifestyles promotion

Dr. Alexandra Valencia-Peris, PhD

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Guest Editor

AFES Research Group, Departament de Didàctica de l’Expressió Musical, Plàstica i Corporal, Universitat de València, Av. Els Tarongers 4, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Interests: physical activity; youth; health behaviors; physical education

Dr. Jorge Lizandra, PhD

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Guest Editor

AFES Research Group, Departament de Didàctica de l’Expressió Musical, Plàstica i Corporal, Universitat de València, Av. Els Tarongers 4, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Interests: physical activity; active lifestyles; health; physical education

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, we are organizing a Special Issue on ‘Physical Activity and Socioenvironmental Factors in Students’. For detailed information on the journal, we refer you to https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph.

The significance of physical activity for health has contributed to the development of many cross-sectional, longitudinal, and intervention studies with children, youth, and young adults. However, little attention has been paid to the fact that, in addition to being young participants, they also share the characteristic of being students. Therefore, this Topical Collection of articles is student-centered and emphasizes the socioenvironmental factors that affect students’ participation in physical activity in and outside educational settings. We are interested in both research and review papers carried out with students from primary, secondary to higher education, and belonging to both vulnerable and nonvulnerable populations. Different methodological and theoretical approaches are also supported.

This Special Issue is open to the topic of ‘Physical Activity and Socioenvironmental Factors in Students’. The keywords listed below provide an outline of some of the possible areas of interest.

Prof. José Devís-Devís, PhD
Prof. Carmen Peiró-Velert, PhD
Dr. Alexandra Valencia-Peris, PhD
Dr. Jorge Lizandra, PhD
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at the MDPI platform (www.mdpi.com) by registering and logging in to this website. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline and all papers will be peer-reviewed. Only research articles and review papers are invited. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website.

Original manuscripts should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be written in good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Physical activity
Children and adolescents
Youth
School curriculum
Extracurricular activities
University
Vulnerable groups
Active commuting
Social factors
Environmental factors

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Published Papers (9 papers)

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Research

11 pages, 1614 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Physical Activity and Exercise: Text Mining Analysis

by Miquel Pans, Joaquin Madera, Luís-Millan González and Maite Pellicer-Chenoll

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(18), 9642; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18189642 - 13 Sep 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2470

Abstract

It is currently difficult to have a global state of the art vision of certain scientific topics. In the field of physical activity (PA) and exercise, this is due to information overload. The present study aims to provide a solution by analysing a large mass of scientific articles using text mining (TM). The purpose was to analyse what is being investigated in the PA health field on young people from primary, secondary and higher education. Titles and abstracts published in the Web of Science (WOS) database were analysed using TM on 24 November 2020, and after removing duplicates, 85,368 remained. The results show 9960 (unique) words and the most frequently used bi-grams and tri-grams. A co-occurrence network was also generated. ‘Health’ was the first term of importance and the most repeated bi-grams and tri-grams were ‘body_mass’ and ‘body_mass_index’. The analyses of the 20 topics identified focused on health-related terms, the social sphere, sports performance and research processes. It also found that the terms health and exercise have become more important in recent years. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Physical Activity and Socioenvironmental Factors in Students)

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15 pages, 1652 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Impact of Neighborhood Environment on Pedestrian Route Selection among Elementary Schoolchildren in Korea

by Somin Lee and Myeong-Hun Lee

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(13), 7049; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18137049 - 1 Jul 2021

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2594

Abstract

Previous studies on the walking environment of elementary school students have focused on physical factors such as traffic accidents, safety, and the neighborhood environment. However, scholars have yet to consider the behavioral characteristics of elementary school students, particularly in respect to the relationship between environmental factors and behavioral characteristics in pedestrian route selection and safety. Addressing this gap, this study identifies how neighborhood environment factors and behavioral characteristics impact route selection and satisfaction among elementary school students. Accordingly, this study surveyed 251 elementary school students at three elementary schools in Korea and analyzed the spatial forms of the selected sites. In doing so, this study discerns students’ satisfaction with their selection of the shortest or non-shortest route and which environmental factors and behavioral characteristics influenced their selection and satisfaction. Study results have practical implications for policymaking, including valuable insights into the planning of school routes for elementary school students. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Physical Activity and Socioenvironmental Factors in Students)

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11 pages, 492 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Physical Activity and Accomplishment of Recommendations in University Students with Disabilities: A Longitudinal Study

by Miquel Pans, Joan Úbeda-Colomer, Javier Monforte and José Devís-Devís

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(11), 5540; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18115540 - 22 May 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2626

Abstract

University settings are socio-environmental contexts that can reduce health disparities in students with disabilities. Therefore, the aim of this study was twofold: (a) to examine the longitudinal physical activity (PA) changes of Spanish university students with disabilities during a three-year period; and (b) to identify the accomplishment of the World Health Organization’s PA recommendations in this period. A three-year follow-up cohort study was conducted on 355 university students with disabilities (172 men, 183 women). The participants completed an electronic survey on PA after which a descriptive analysis, longitudinal (Wilcoxon tests) and cross-sectional pairwise comparisons (Mann–Whitney U and Kruskal–Wallis tests) were performed on non-normal data. The results show no significant PA changes during the three-year period. The cross-sectional comparisons between the waves presented a reduction in vigorous PA according to sex and similar values by age, origin of disability, and socioeconomic status. A global reduction of 0.6% was found in achieving the recommendations between the waves. We also found an increase of 5.3% in the participants classified as overweight–obese during this period. The findings offered in this study have important implications for university disability care services and sports services. University policies should focus on rethinking PA and sports programs for students with disabilities. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Physical Activity and Socioenvironmental Factors in Students)

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12 pages, 749 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Comparison of Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour between Schoolchildren with Cystic Fibrosis and Healthy Controls: A Gender Analysis

by Alexandra Valencia-Peris, Jorge Lizandra, Irene Moya-Mata, Fernando Gómez-Gonzalvo, Silvia Castillo-Corullón and Amparo Escribano

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(10), 5375; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18105375 - 18 May 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3045

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine differences in sports participation and the levels of physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviour (SB) between schoolchildren with cystic fibrosis (CF) and a healthy control group (CG) taking into account the gender variable. PA and SB were measured with an accelerometer for 7 consecutive days in 44 children (24 girls; 11.0 (3.2) years) with CF and 45 age-, sex-, and socioeconomic status-matched controls (24 girls; 11.1 (3.0) years). CF patients and CG did not differ in moderate-to-vigorous PA (54 (31) vs. 59 (27) min/day respectively) or in SB (558 (106) vs. 553 (92) min/day respectively). There were no differences in meeting the PA guidelines between both groups (CF: 36.4% vs. CG: 42.4%). Gender analysis revealed that boys were more active and met more PA guidelines than girls regardless of the group (CF or CG), girls with CF being the least active group (only 16.7% met PA guidelines). A possible compensatory effect was found between SB and PA only in the CF sample, as for each minute/day spent in SB the odds of meeting PA guidelines decreased by 34%. These findings suggest that promoting a reduction in SB is as important as promoting PA in the CF population, especially in girls. Health caregivers, coaches, teachers, or parents could offer appealing supervised and unsupervised physical activities, foster the adoption of active lifestyles, or incorporate PA into daily routines to improve the health of CF schoolchildren. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Physical Activity and Socioenvironmental Factors in Students)

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15 pages, 291 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Pupils’ Motivational and Emotional Responses to Pedagogies of Affect in Physical Education in Scottish Secondary Schools

by Cara A. Lamb, Eishin Teraoka, Kimberly L. Oliver and David Kirk

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(10), 5183; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18105183 - 13 May 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4119

Abstract

This paper reports on the findings of two studies concerned with pupils’ motivational and emotional responses to pedagogies of affect in physical education in Scottish secondary schools. Pedagogies of affect explicitly focus on learning in the affective domain, or what is known in Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) as ‘personal qualities’. Personal qualities include motivation, confidence and self-esteem, determination and resilience, responsibility and leadership, respect and tolerance, and communication. In one study, led by Teraoka, the researchers explored the ways in which pupils responded, through focus group interviews based on Self-Determination Theory, to teachers who claimed to value and be committed to teaching explicitly for affective learning outcomes. In another study, led by Lamb, the researchers investigated the impact of an activist intervention on girls’ experiences of physical education, through their conversations in focus group discussions. Both studies reveal that pupils responded favorably, both in motivation and emotion, to pedagogies of affect in physical education, and that these responses offer a promising basis for future developments. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Physical Activity and Socioenvironmental Factors in Students)

14 pages, 377 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Stand Out in Class: Investigating the Potential Impact of a Sit–Stand Desk Intervention on Children’s Sitting and Physical Activity during Class Time and after School

by Yu-Ling Chen, Keith Tolfrey, Natalie Pearson, Daniel D. Bingham, Charlotte Edwardson, Lorraine Cale, David Dunstan, Sally E. Barber and Stacy A. Clemes

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(9), 4759; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094759 - 29 Apr 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 5245

Abstract

Sedentary behaviour (sitting) is a risk factor for adverse health outcomes. The classroom environment has traditionally been associated with prolonged periods of sitting in children. The aim of this study was to examine the potential impact of an environmental intervention, the addition of sit–stand desks in the classroom, on school children’s sitting and physical activity during class time and after school. The ‘Stand Out in Class’ pilot trial was a two-arm cluster randomised controlled trial conducted in eight primary schools with children from a mixed socioeconomic background. The 4.5 month environmental intervention modified the physical (six sit–stand desks replaced standard desks) and social (e.g., teachers’ support) environment. All children wore activPAL and ActiGraph accelerometers for 7 days at baseline and follow-up. In total 176 children (mean age = 9.3 years) took part in the trial. At baseline, control and intervention groups spent more than 65% of class time sitting, this changed to 71.7% and 59.1% at follow-up, respectively (group effect p < 0.001). The proportion of class time spent standing and stepping, along with the proportion of time in light activity increased in the intervention group and decreased in the control group. There was no evidence of any compensatory effects from the intervention after school. Incorporating sit–stand desks to change the classroom environment at primary school appears to be an acceptable strategy for reducing children’s sedentary behaviour and increasing light activity especially during class time. Trial registration: ISRCTN12915848 (registered: 09/11/16). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Physical Activity and Socioenvironmental Factors in Students)

12 pages, 384 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Do Adolescents Who Meet Physical Activity Recommendations on Weekdays Also Meet Them on Weekends? A Cross-Sectional Study in Colombia

by Fernando Galindo-Perdomo, Carmen Peiró-Velert and Alexandra Valencia-Peris

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(3), 897; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18030897 - 21 Jan 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2680

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine whether Colombian adolescents fulfill physical activity (PA) recommendations by type of day depending on several variables. A cross-sectional study was carried out on a sample of 2624 adolescents from Neiva (Colombia) using the Seven Day PA Recall and the Family Affluence Scale II self-reported questionnaires. Statistical analyses were performed to find any differences by gender, socioeconomic status, PA recommendations accomplishment, participation in organized and non-organized PA, parents’ involvement in sport, and adolescents’ academic achievement, and to determine the probability of complying with the PA guidelines. Only 12.3% of the participants met the PA recommendations on weekdays and weekends. Girls maintained their (in)active patterns during the week more than boys (84.4% vs. 70.7%, respectively), while more boys than girls changed them according to the type of day (25.3% vs. 19.6%). Participation in organized sports was the predictor variable with the highest probability of both boys and girls complying with the PA recommendations on weekdays. Non-organized activities were more likely to make girls more active on weekends. In conclusion, a wider offer of organized and non-competitive PA over the weekend and broader sports schedules should be provided to youth in Neiva. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Physical Activity and Socioenvironmental Factors in Students)

15 pages, 377 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Environmental Barriers and Facilitators to Physical Activity among University Students with Physical Disability—A Qualitative Study in Spain

by Javier Monforte, Joan Úbeda-Colomer, Miquel Pans, Víctor Pérez-Samaniego and José Devís-Devís

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(2), 464; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18020464 - 8 Jan 2021

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 4788

Abstract

This paper qualitatively examines environmental factors operating as barriers and/or facilitators to participation in physical activity (PA) of people with physical disabilities. Interview data were collected from 27 Spanish university students through the innovative method of two-on-one interviews. Thereafter, data were subject to a flexible thematic analysis. Three themes were constructed: associations; PA practice spaces; and nonhumans. Concepts from different theories were used to generate meaningful interpretations around each theme. Drawing on our results, we offer several reflections and directions. Two key messages can be highlighted. First, environmental barriers and facilitators are context dependent and thus do not precede the circumstances in which they emerge. Second, Spanish universities should work harder to become relevant PA promoting environments for students with physical disability. The knowledge generated in this study is expected to inform the design, implementation and evaluation of programs promoting PA among Spanish university students with physical disability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Physical Activity and Socioenvironmental Factors in Students)

15 pages, 536 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Factors Associated with Participation in Physical Activity Among Canadian School-Aged Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Application of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health

by Emily Bremer, Kathleen A. Martin Ginis, Rebecca L. Bassett-Gunter and Kelly P. Arbour-Nicitopoulos

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(16), 5925; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17165925 - 14 Aug 2020

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 4680

Abstract

We have a limited understanding of the socioenvironmental factors associated with participation in physical activity among school-aged children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), particularly regarding how the school environment may influence their participation. Using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) as a framework, this study examined the effect of body functions and structure, activity, and personal factors on in-school physical activity; and whether in-school physical activity, considered a socioenvironmental factor, is associated with out-of-school physical activity (i.e., participation) among elementary school-aged children (6–13 years of age) with ASD. Parents of 202 children with ASD (78.2% boys; M_age = 9.4 years) completed an online survey, as part of a larger study, to assess their child’s functioning and physical activity in- and out-of-school. Results indicated that the majority of children (85.1%) did not meet physical activity guidelines. In-school physical activities significantly predicted out-of-school physical activities including leisure-time moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (R² = 0.27, F(10,154) = 5.67, p < 0.001) and meeting the physical activity guidelines (R² = 0.23, Χ² (10) = 31.9, p < 0.001). These findings underscore the importance of supporting children with ASD to be physically active in school, which may impact physical activity levels out-of-school. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Physical Activity and Socioenvironmental Factors in Students)

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