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Examining the Features of Parks That Children Visit During Three Stages of Childhood

Parks provide an opportunity for children to be physically active, but are rarely fully utilised. A better understanding of which park features attract children of varying ages is needed. This study examined which features are present at parks that children visit most often at different stages throu...

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Autores principales: Flowers, Elliott P., Timperio, Anna, Hesketh, Kylie D., Veitch, Jenny
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6539492/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31086047
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16091658
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author Flowers, Elliott P.
Timperio, Anna
Hesketh, Kylie D.
Veitch, Jenny
author_facet Flowers, Elliott P.
Timperio, Anna
Hesketh, Kylie D.
Veitch, Jenny
author_sort Flowers, Elliott P.
collection PubMed
description Parks provide an opportunity for children to be physically active, but are rarely fully utilised. A better understanding of which park features attract children of varying ages is needed. This study examined which features are present at parks that children visit most often at different stages throughout childhood. Parents reported the park their child visited most often at three timepoints: T1 = 3–5 years, T2 = 6–8 years, and T3 = 9–11 years. These parks were then audited (using a purposely created audit tool) to capture information relating to access, activity areas and quality. Online mapping tools were also used to determine walking distance to parks and park size. Parks visited at T2 were further from home, larger, and had more road crossings, full courts, other facilities and comfort amenities such as toilets and lights than T1 parks. Parks visited at T3 were larger and had more sports ovals compared to T1 parks, and were significantly less likely to have barbeque facilities than T2 parks. Our findings suggest that as children transition from pre-school (T1), to primary school age (T2 and T3), they visit parks that have more facilities to support sport and active recreation.
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spelling pubmed-65394922019-06-05 Examining the Features of Parks That Children Visit During Three Stages of Childhood Flowers, Elliott P. Timperio, Anna Hesketh, Kylie D. Veitch, Jenny Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Parks provide an opportunity for children to be physically active, but are rarely fully utilised. A better understanding of which park features attract children of varying ages is needed. This study examined which features are present at parks that children visit most often at different stages throughout childhood. Parents reported the park their child visited most often at three timepoints: T1 = 3–5 years, T2 = 6–8 years, and T3 = 9–11 years. These parks were then audited (using a purposely created audit tool) to capture information relating to access, activity areas and quality. Online mapping tools were also used to determine walking distance to parks and park size. Parks visited at T2 were further from home, larger, and had more road crossings, full courts, other facilities and comfort amenities such as toilets and lights than T1 parks. Parks visited at T3 were larger and had more sports ovals compared to T1 parks, and were significantly less likely to have barbeque facilities than T2 parks. Our findings suggest that as children transition from pre-school (T1), to primary school age (T2 and T3), they visit parks that have more facilities to support sport and active recreation. MDPI 2019-05-13 2019-05 /pmc/articles/PMC6539492/ /pubmed/31086047 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16091658 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Flowers, Elliott P.
Timperio, Anna
Hesketh, Kylie D.
Veitch, Jenny
Examining the Features of Parks That Children Visit During Three Stages of Childhood
title Examining the Features of Parks That Children Visit During Three Stages of Childhood
title_full Examining the Features of Parks That Children Visit During Three Stages of Childhood
title_fullStr Examining the Features of Parks That Children Visit During Three Stages of Childhood
title_full_unstemmed Examining the Features of Parks That Children Visit During Three Stages of Childhood
title_short Examining the Features of Parks That Children Visit During Three Stages of Childhood
title_sort examining the features of parks that children visit during three stages of childhood
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6539492/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31086047
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16091658
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