Physical activity and screen time of children and adolescents before and during the COVID-19 lockdown in Germany: a natural experiment
Schmidt SCE, Anedda B, Burchartz A, Eichsteller A, Kolb S, Nigg C, Niessner C, Oriwol D, Worth A, Woll A
Scientific reports · 316 citations
How it was studied
- Design
- Controlled clinical trial (indexed by PubMed)
- Studied in
- People
- Main outcome
- No health outcome
Who paid for it
- Funding
- Independent funding
- Government
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Government
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
- Government
- Projekt DEAL
- Grants
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung ((01ER1503))
Based on 3 listed funder(s) and full-text disclosure statement.
Publication
- Published
- 2020-12-11 · Sci Rep · vol. 10 · issue 1 · p. 21780
- Publisher
- Nature Portfolio
- Cited
- 736 citations · more than 100% of similar papers · 151.7× the field average
- Impact
- Top 10% most cited in its field
- References
- 64 works
- Access
- Open access (journal) · CC-BY
- Research areas
- Mobile Health and mHealth Applications · Obesity, Physical Activity, Diet · Eating Disorders and Behaviors
- Keywords
- physical activity, screen time, children, adolescents, COVID-19 lockdown, sports activities, recreational screen time, physical activity behavior, age differences, sex differences
- MeSH
- humans, exercise, health surveys, quarantine, socioeconomic factors, adolescent, child, child, preschool, germany, female, male, screen time, covid-19, sars-cov-2
10 authors
From DE
- Steffen Schmidt · correspondingKarlsruhe Institute of Technology
- Bastian AneddaKarlsruhe Institute of Technology
- Alexander BurchartzKarlsruhe Institute of Technology
- Ana EichstellerKarlsruhe Institute of Technology
- Simon KolbKarlsruhe Institute of Technology
- Carina NiggKarlsruhe Institute of Technology
Abstract
The impact of COVID-19 on social life has been drastic and global. However, the different numbers of cases and different actions in different countries have been leading to various interesting yet unexplored effects on human behavior. In the present study, we compare the physical activity and recreational screen time of a representative sample of 1711 4- to 17-year-olds before and during the strictest time of the first COVID-19 lockdown in Germany. We found that sports activity declined whereas recreational screen time increased. However, a substantial increase in habitual physical activities leads to an overall increase in physical activity among children and adolescents in Germany. The effects differ in size but not in their direction between age groups and are stable for boys and girls. We conclude from this natural experiment that physical activity among children and adolescents is highly context-driven and mutual and does not act as a functional opposite to recreational screen time.
Abstract via Europe PMC. Copyright remains with the authors or publisher (CC BY).
Community trust
Loading…
How much do you trust this study's findings?
Comments
Sign in to rate, comment on or flag this study.Sign inSomething wrong here?
Flag this study if its information, labels or funding look wrong. An editor reviews every flag.
Sign in to rate, comment on or flag this study.Sign inEducational information about published research. Not medical advice, and not a recommendation to start or stop anything.