BACKGROUND

The majority of USA children are in some type of childcare provision. The childcare centre is the highest predictor of preschool physical activity. Being outdoors is the strongest correlate of physical activity. Diverse natural environments support attention functioning, gross motor development, children’s health, and richer play.

OBJECTIVE
The goal of the study was to investigate the association between the design characteristics of preschool play areas and the level of physical activity of 3-5 year old children.

METHODS
Three childcare centers in North Carolina, USA, serving comparable groups of 3-5 years old children were selected (Centers A, B, and C). They contained play areas with different designs and dissimilar proportions of manufactured and natural elements. Settings in each play area were categorized as “manufactured,” “mixed” or “natural” and their environmental diversity scored in a 1-4 scale developed for the study.

A variety of methods were used to establish sample comparability: Early Childhood Attention Deficit Disorder Scale EC-ADDES, body mass index (BMI), the Test of Gross Motor Development TGMD-2 and demographic information. One-week accelerometry was used to measure children’s activity indoors and outdoors.

To link the amount of physical activity to play settings and environmental features, two methods were used: 1. Behavior mapping (processed with GIS), and 2. Video tracking of selected children (analyzed using The Observer, Noldus). Setting diversity was measured using a 1-4 point scale developed by the researcher.

Although behavior mapping has been previously used for investigating children’s environments, this is the first time it has been applied to preschool environments using GIS coding (gender, physical activity level, and use of wheeled toys). These codes, added to the location of subjects, provided a deeper understanding of the relationship between environment and children’s behavior. The methodological approach was driven by theoretical constructs particularly the concepts of behavior setting, motivation, and affordance.

RESULTS
The association between outdoor play area design and level of physical activity was confirmed by one-week accelerometry.

The analysis of behavior maps confirms this result and demonstrates that children show greater amounts of physical activity in mixed settings (containing play equipment, vegetation, pathways, and areas for wheeled toy use). If mixed settings are not present, paths and play equipment support more vigorous activity than other settings.

The concept of affordance helped to explain how preschool physical activity is linked to environmental variables in a way that can be applied to design - considered as the creation or arrangement of the physical space to support a need or a specific experience - by analyzing the layout, objects and events in the space.

Using behavior map data, a logistic regression was conducted to assess which variables best predicted the levels of physical activity in the preschool play areas. Results indicate that center, gender and size of setting are the stronger predictors of higher levels of physical activity. High correlations between preschool physical activity, setting size and setting diversity confirm these results.

CONCLUSIONS
The study strongly suggests that the amount of physical activity afforded by preschool play areas can be intentionally improved by design. Diverse play areas containing pathways and natural elements, and combining a range of setting sizes are expected to be the most active. In this study, the most effective setting for motivating physical activity was a wide, curvy, wheeled toy pathway. It was observed that compact play areas, where greater numbers of children play together are likely to support more physical activity and that educational programs that foster outdoor learning are likely to secure greater amounts of sustained physical activity. The methodology developed for this study has been successfully applied to other environment-behavior contexts and holds promise for further research applications.

Appropriate design and childcare licensing policies are viable vehicles to produce outdoor behavior change in early childhood institutions.