New Zealand- The health and wellbeing of children across the globe as the pandemic had already further deteriorated in an already less active world, as indicated by many studies. However, researcher in New Zealand have noticed positive trend among many adolescents.
The study focused on 200 high school students in Auckland and Wellington for over 2 weeks who had a wearable global positioning system (GPS) device together with an accelerometer that measures acceleration rates.
The study was led by the University of Canterbury together with the Auckland University of Technology, where the findings were combined with environmental findings to monitor the surroundings of the participants, such as natural environments as parks or stores and takeaway shops. The findings were meant to compare how the participants locations they most frequented, impacted their behavior with regard to physical activity and inactive time.
Dr Matthew Hobbs, Senior Lecturer in the University of Canterbury (UC) Faculty of Health and Co-Director of the GeoHealth Laboratory who led the study stated that adolescents spending an increased time in locations within reach of health-promoting features, reduced their time spent in travelling by car or being inactive.
The mood of an individual and environment they stay have often impacted a person’s impact on physical activity and many health care officials had raised the alarm during the pandemic of the inability to go out impacting their mental health with depression being a common problem. Dr. Hobbs, further added that the results are vital as its known that greater physical activity translates to advanced academic achievements.
This was the 1st use to use GPS data for monitoring adolescents combined with a comprehensive valuation of the atmosphere they use for spending spare time. Dr Hobbs further added that it is known that adolescence comes with more independence and mobility, hence the study gave better findings on the adolescent hang outs.
“We know that adolescence is where young people tend to get more independence and are very mobile, so this is a more accurate way of investigating where they are choosing to hang out,” Dr Hobbs says.
Previously there has been limited research conducted on the environmental risks to adolescent health, however they are a priority group because they are at an important life stage, he says.
“In recent decades the environments where children and teens live and play have changed substantially, including having, for instance, a higher number of fast-food restaurants in some areas.
“We need a greater understanding of how access to these features is affecting health behaviours and health outcomes, particularly because adverse environments are often more prevalent in the most deprived areas of Aotearoa New Zealand.”
He says adolescence is often associated with a decrease in physical activity and a rise in sedentary behaviour.
“It is likely that environmental factors play some part in this trend. I think the important aspects are whether teenagers can walk to school, do they have safe places to play with friends, what’s the traffic density like and how connected are the streets. It’s about having more neighbourhoods that promote physical activity.”
The study used environmental data from The Healthy Location Index, developed by a team of researchers, including Dr Hobbs and Spatial Data Scientist Dr Lukas Marek at UC’s GeoHealth Laboratory. The Healthy Location Index classifies areas of Aotearoa New Zealand based on how healthy or unhealthy the neighbourhood is.
Overall, the participants in the new study spent most of their measured time in the school domain (4.8 hours per day), closely followed by home (4.3 hours a day), and other areas (2.3 hours per day). More time was spent travelling in a motor vehicle (31 minutes per day) compared to pedestrianised travel (23 minutes per day), and more time was spent sedentary, compared to light or moderate intensity exercise.
As the proportion of time spent in areas with greater access to health-promoting features increased, the amount of sedentary time and travel in a vehicle fell.
