Children’s Physical Activity: The Contribution of Playing and Walking

This paper draws on research in which 200 children were fitted with motion sensorsand asked to keep travel and activity diaries. The findings show that walking andplaying away from home can contribute significantly to children’s volume of physicalactivity, with consequent implications for their health. Not only do both playing andwalking provide high levels of physical activity, they are linked to other behaviourswhich further augment the level of physical activity. Children who walk rather thanuse the car tend to be generally more active than other children, and children tend tobe more active when they are out of their homes than when they are in them. Thefindings are placed in the context of other research about children’s travel andphysical activity, and conclusions drawn about the need to reverse current trends inchildren’s patterns of travel and physical activity.