Intensity Level of Different Kinds of Outdoor Physical Activities in Kindergarten and the Related Influencing Factors

Objective:Aimed at testing and recording the intensity of children in different age and gender participating in three types of outdoor activities(morning exercise,free-time activity and collective game)in kindergarten,and analyzing the effects of different influencing factors towards activity's intensity level and changing characteristics,the main purpose is to provide the reference methods and guidance for the future study towards pre-school children's physical activity as well as the outdoor activity's design in kindergarten.Methods:71 children(37 for male,34 for female)from a kindergarten in Beijing participated in the study.After the collection of the basic information such as their age,height and weight,each child was asked to wear an Actigraph(GT3X+)accelerometer for the whole day in kindergarten.Data of three kinds of activities including morning exercise,free-time activity and collective game were collected and 15 seconds of counts was used to reflect the changes of activity intensity.Multi-factor analysis of variance has been used to evaluate the impact of different age,gender and activity type towards the activity intensity level.Results:In general,the average intensity of all activities in children has reached the medium or above level.The influences of gender,age and activity type towards the activity intensity are interactive(P<0.01).After the simple effect analysis,it is found that as for the influences of age,the total intensity level of boys in senior class in kindergarten is higher than those in middle class in free-time activity(P<0.01),and the intensity level of girls in senior class is higher than those in middle class in collective game(P<0.01)and morning exercise(P<0.05).The influence of gender towards activity intensity level is relatively small.Girls in middle class has relatively higher activity intensity level in collective game(P<0.01).Among all the different activities,the intensity level is higher in freetime activity for most children.Compared with intensity level of the morning exercise and collective game,there is significant difference(P<0.01).And the total intensity levels of the latter two are basically consistent with each other(P>0.05).The intensity level of the boys in middle class is higher in collective game,which approaches to the data of free-time activity(P>0.05)and is inferior to the data of morning exercise(P >0.05).Conclusion:In this study,the average intensities of each common outdoor activities in the kindergarten is approaching to the moderate or high intensity level.,and the intensity of free-time activity is the highest.But the time of outdoor activity in kindergarten is not enough currently.Furthermore,there is difference between the activity intensity level of children in different age,indicating that the individualistic characteristics of children in different age shall be considered in activity design.In the same time,the boys' initiative has not been well aroused in the design of outdoor sports.