Elsevier

Health & Place

Volume 12, Issue 4, December 2006, Pages 678-687
Health & Place

Active commuting to school among NSW primary school children: implications for public health

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2005.09.003Get rights and content

Abstract

Regular active commuting by walking/cycling can help maintain an active lifestyle. The frequency, duration and correlates of school active commuting were examined for primary school children in NSW, Australia. Walking/cycling -only and in combination with bus/car were of short duration (median 7 or 4 min, respectively) and their frequency dropped within a short distance (>0.75 km) from school. Apart from distance, child's age, school affiliation and perceived safety, regular walking/cycling (10 trips, 22%) was associated with parents’ travel mode to work and with father taking the child to school. Frequent walking/cycling (⩾5 trips, 37%) was associated with child's level of independence and the perceived benefits of active commuting. Behaviour change in this setting requires multi-level strategies.

Section snippets

Background

The rapid global increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity has been linked to environments that encourage sedentary behavior, including environments that place greater reliance on motor vehicles (French et al., 2001; Catford, 2003). Strategies aimed at increasing ‘lifestyle’ physical activity in children have emerged out of the public health need to prevent obesity and to establish early healthy habits (Sallis and Patrick, 1994; Biddle et al., 1998). Active commuting to school has

Participants

A computer assisted telephone interview (CATI) survey was conducted during April 2002 as part of the evaluation of the NSW ‘Walk Safely to School Day’ (WSTSD). Households were randomly selected using the electronic white pages telephone directory. Eligible respondents were identified during initial screening as: (1) parent or primary carer of a child 5–12 years of age; and, (2) responsible for overseeing/taking the household's child/ren to school. The survey was introduced as a study on child

Results

Overall, 812 interviews with parents were completed, representing a 67% response rate. Most of the respondents (80.3%, n=652) were females, 56% were under 40 years old, 87% were married/ de-facto, 11% spoke a language other than English at home, 30% had tertiary education and 68% (n=542) had a full or part-time job, and of those employed parents/carers 89 (16.4%) reported that they walked/cycled on their journey to work. Half (51.6%) of the children were girls and 76% were 5–10 years old. The

Discussion

This paper provides a broader definition of active commuting to include any ‘leg’ of a trip to or from school that includes walking or cycling. Even with this broad definition, less than half of the children were ‘active commuters’ in any given week. On an average day only one third of children were active commuters, and one-quarter undertook single-mode active travel, while for two thirds the home–school journey was entirely motorized. This low prevalence is similar to that found in traffic

Acknowledgments

The NSW Health Department provided the funding for this survey.

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