Dance in the News:

COLUMBIA, S.C., Feb. 6 -- 

"The 'conventional wisdom' of many early childhood educators is that young children are very active in preschools," the researchers said. "[But] research has shown that, most often, young children's physical activity in preschools is primarily sedentary in nature."

So to describe their physical activity behaviors and to determine which conditions predict physical activity, the researchers conducted the cross-sectional Children's Activity and Movement in Preschools Study (CHAMPS) of 476 children ages three to five enrolled in 24 preschools in a metropolitan area of South Carolina.

During 30-minute observation periods, researchers focused on one child and recorded five levels of physical activity: motionless, stationary with limb movement, slow easy activity, moderate activity, and vigorous activity.

A total of 264,809 indoor observations were made, accounting for 87% of all observations, and 29,694 outdoor observations were made, accounting for 10%.

The majority of children's activities were sedentary. During a typical day, 89% of activities were sedentary, 8% were lightly active, and 3% were moderate-to-vigorously active.

Of the indoor observations, 94% of activity was sedentary, while only 1% was moderate-to-vigorous. Outdoors, 56% of activity was sedentary while 17% was moderate-to-vigorous.

"Even during outdoor play, our observations indicated that most often children's activities were sedentary," the researchers said. "Teachers very rarely used intentional methods such as encouragement to be physically active and teacher-arranged activities to increase physical activity."

The researchers said that kids were more likely to be active when balls and other play objects were introduced. Also, having open space was associated with more physical activity.

Still, they concluded that "low levels of children's activity and the lack of adult encouragement point to a need for teachers to organize, model, and encourage physical activity."