Sedentary behaviour across the primary to secondary school transition: A review

By: Azizi Baxter Pergi
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Objective: The purposes of this review are to investigate the sedentary behaviour changes associated across the primary to secondary school transition among adolescents and compare sedentary behaviour level between primary school age group and secondary school age group. Methods: Search terms used were sedentary behaviour, physical inactivity, screen-based media, computer, video, television viewing, passive play, primary, secondary, middle school, school transition, recess, tracking, play time, lunch time, adolescent, youth, boy, and girl. Longitudinal and cross-sectional studies were identified from searches in Web of Knowledge, PubMed, Science Direct and Scopus. Longitudinal studies included measured adolescents' sedentary behaviour at least two time points, with end of primary school years as baseline. Sedentary behaviour comparison was based from primary school and secondary school age group derived from cross-sectional studies. Results: The author identified 8 papers, of which 3 considered to be high quality of reporting. Four were longitudinal while other four were cross-sectional design. Sedentary behaviour measured varies across studies but television viewing was the common among them. The review found some evidence to associate sedentary behaviour changes between primary and secondary age group but more longitudinal studies are needed to confirm association with school transition. Conclusion: This systematic review suggested that there is an increased of sedentary behaviours during secondary schools among the adolescent. Future studies should emphasise more longitudinal design to study sedentary behaviour changes associated with school transitions.

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