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Criterion distances and correlates of active transportation to school in Belgian older adolescents

BACKGROUND: Since physical activity levels in older adolescents have the potential to be increased by stimulating active transportation to school (ATS), the most important correlates of ATS should be determined before developing interventions, especially in those adolescents for whom the distance to...

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Autores principales: Van Dyck, Delfien, De Bourdeaudhuij, Ilse, Cardon, Greet, Deforche, Benedicte
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2010
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3004815/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21143868
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-7-87
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author Van Dyck, Delfien
De Bourdeaudhuij, Ilse
Cardon, Greet
Deforche, Benedicte
author_facet Van Dyck, Delfien
De Bourdeaudhuij, Ilse
Cardon, Greet
Deforche, Benedicte
author_sort Van Dyck, Delfien
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Since physical activity levels in older adolescents have the potential to be increased by stimulating active transportation to school (ATS), the most important correlates of ATS should be determined before developing interventions, especially in those adolescents for whom the distance to school is feasible for active commuting. The main aims of this study were to determine criterion distances for ATS in Belgian older adolescents, to examine multidimensional correlates of ATS in adolescents living within a feasible distance from school and to investigate the associations of ATS with total physical activity and with other physical activities besides ATS. METHODS: In total, 1281 older adolescents (17-18 years) from 20 general secondary schools in East- and West-Flanders completed a questionnaire on physical activity behaviors, demographic factors and psychosocial and physical environmental correlates of physical activity. Distance to school was objectively measured using Routenet online route planner. RESULTS: In total, 58.4% of the participants commuted actively to school. The criterion distance for ATS could be set at eight kilometers for cycling and two kilometers for walking. For those adolescents living within a feasible distance for ATS, gender, smoking status, walkability of the neighborhood and social modeling were associated with transportation mode choice. ATS was positively associated with total physical activity, but not significantly related to min/week of other physical activities. CONCLUSIONS: For older adolescents living within eight kilometers of their school, interventions taking into account the correlates found to be related to ATS could possibly be effective to enhance ATS and to increase total physical activity levels. In the context of the overall physical activity decline in adolescence, also interventions targeting physical activity behaviors of adolescents living further away from school might be needed, but these interventions should probably emphasize alternative strategies.
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spelling pubmed-30048152010-12-21 Criterion distances and correlates of active transportation to school in Belgian older adolescents Van Dyck, Delfien De Bourdeaudhuij, Ilse Cardon, Greet Deforche, Benedicte Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act Research BACKGROUND: Since physical activity levels in older adolescents have the potential to be increased by stimulating active transportation to school (ATS), the most important correlates of ATS should be determined before developing interventions, especially in those adolescents for whom the distance to school is feasible for active commuting. The main aims of this study were to determine criterion distances for ATS in Belgian older adolescents, to examine multidimensional correlates of ATS in adolescents living within a feasible distance from school and to investigate the associations of ATS with total physical activity and with other physical activities besides ATS. METHODS: In total, 1281 older adolescents (17-18 years) from 20 general secondary schools in East- and West-Flanders completed a questionnaire on physical activity behaviors, demographic factors and psychosocial and physical environmental correlates of physical activity. Distance to school was objectively measured using Routenet online route planner. RESULTS: In total, 58.4% of the participants commuted actively to school. The criterion distance for ATS could be set at eight kilometers for cycling and two kilometers for walking. For those adolescents living within a feasible distance for ATS, gender, smoking status, walkability of the neighborhood and social modeling were associated with transportation mode choice. ATS was positively associated with total physical activity, but not significantly related to min/week of other physical activities. CONCLUSIONS: For older adolescents living within eight kilometers of their school, interventions taking into account the correlates found to be related to ATS could possibly be effective to enhance ATS and to increase total physical activity levels. In the context of the overall physical activity decline in adolescence, also interventions targeting physical activity behaviors of adolescents living further away from school might be needed, but these interventions should probably emphasize alternative strategies. BioMed Central 2010-12-08 /pmc/articles/PMC3004815/ /pubmed/21143868 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-7-87 Text en Copyright ©2010 Van Dyck et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (<url>http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0</url>), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research
Van Dyck, Delfien
De Bourdeaudhuij, Ilse
Cardon, Greet
Deforche, Benedicte
Criterion distances and correlates of active transportation to school in Belgian older adolescents
title Criterion distances and correlates of active transportation to school in Belgian older adolescents
title_full Criterion distances and correlates of active transportation to school in Belgian older adolescents
title_fullStr Criterion distances and correlates of active transportation to school in Belgian older adolescents
title_full_unstemmed Criterion distances and correlates of active transportation to school in Belgian older adolescents
title_short Criterion distances and correlates of active transportation to school in Belgian older adolescents
title_sort criterion distances and correlates of active transportation to school in belgian older adolescents
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3004815/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21143868
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-7-87
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