Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle? A: Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.
Children's route choice during active transportation to school: difference between shortest and actual route.
Dessing D1,2,3,
de Vries SI4,
Hegeman G5,
Verhagen E6,7,8,9,
van Mechelen W6,7,9,10,11,
Pierik FH12.
- 1Department of Public & Occupational Health and EMGO+ Institute, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. dirk.dessing@tno.nl.
- 2Amsterdam Collaboration on Health & Safety in Sports, IOC Research Center, AMC/VUmc, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. dirk.dessing@tno.nl.
- 3TNO, Department of Life Style, Leiden, The Netherlands. dirk.dessing@tno.nl.
- 4Research group Healthy Lifestyle in a Supporting Environment, The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Hague, The Netherlands.
- 5Royal HaskoningDHV, Amersfoort, The Netherlands.
- 6Department of Public & Occupational Health and EMGO+ Institute, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
- 7Amsterdam Collaboration on Health & Safety in Sports, IOC Research Center, AMC/VUmc, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
- 8Australian
Centre for Research into Injury in Sport and its Prevention (ACRISP),
Federation University Australia, Ballarat, Australia.
- 9Division of Exercise Science and Sports Medicine (ESSM), Department of Human Biology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.
- 10School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences, Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
- 11School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Population Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
- 12TNO, Department of Urban Environment and Safety, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
The
purpose of this study is to increase our understanding of environmental
correlates that are associated with route choice during active
transportation to school (ATS) by comparing characteristics of actual
walking and cycling routes between home and school with the shortest
possible route to school.
METHODS:
Children (n = 184; 86 boys, 98 girls; age range: 8-12 years) from seven schools in suburban municipalities in the Netherlands
participated in the study. Actual walking and cycling routes to school
were measured with a GPS-device that children wore during an entire
school week. Measurements were conducted in the period April-June 2014.
Route characteristics for both actual and shortest routes between home
and school were determined for a buffer of 25 m from the routes and
divided into four categories: Land use (residential, commercial,
recreational, traffic areas), Aesthetics (presence of greenery/natural
water ways along route), Traffic (safety measures such as traffic
lights, zebra crossings, speed bumps) and Type of street (pedestrian,
cycling, residential streets, arterial roads). Comparison of
characteristics of shortest and actual routes was performed with
conditional logistic regression models.
RESULTS:
Median
distance of the actual walking routes was 390.1 m, whereas median
distance of actual cycling routes was 673.9 m. Actual walking and
cycling routes were not significantly longer than the shortest possible
routes. Children mainly traveled through residential areas on their way
to school (>80% of the route). Traffic lights were found to be
positively associated with route choice during ATS. Zebra crossings were
less often present along the actual routes (walking: OR = 0.17, 95%
CI = 0.05-0.58; cycling: OR = 0.31, 95% CI = 0.14-0.67), and streets
with a high occurrence of accidents were less often used during cycling
to school (OR = 0.57, 95% CI = 0.43-0.76). Moreover, percentage of
visible surface water along the actual route was higher compared to the
shortest routes (walking: OR = 1.04, 95% CI = 1.01-1.07; cycling:
OR = 1.03, 95% CI = 1.01-1.05).
DISCUSSION:
This
study showed a novel approach to examine built environmental exposure
during active transport to school. Most of the results of the study
suggest that children avoid to walk or cycle along busy roads on their
way to school.
KEYWORDS:
Active transportation; Built environment; Children; Cycling; Elementary school; GIS; Global Positioning System (GPS); Walking
