SCHOOL-TIME MOVEMENT BEHAVIOURS AND FUNDAMENTAL MOVEMENT SKILLS IN
PRESCHOOLERS: AN ISOTEMPORAL REALLOCATION ANALYSIS
Abstract
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Little is known on how relocations of time spent in
different movement behaviours during pre-school hours could relate to
preschooler’s fundamental movement skills (FMS), a key predictor of
later physical activity (PA). Thus, the aim of this study was to examine
whether the school-time composition was associated with FMS; and to
investigate predicted differences in FMS when a fixed duration of time
was reallocated from one activity behaviour to another in preschool
children. METHODS: A cross-sectional representative data of an
intervention study with Brazilian low-income preschoolers. Two hundred
and four preschoolers of both sexes (4.5±0.8 years-old; 101boys)
provided 10 hours of school-time objectively assessed PA and sedentary
behaviour (SB) data (Actigraph wGT3X), and FMS assessments (TGMD-2).
Association of school-time composition of movement behaviuors with FMS
and its reallocations during school-time was explored using
compositional analysis in R (version 1.40-1), robCompositions (version
0.92-7), and lmtest (version 0.9-35) packages. RESULTS: The
isotemporal reallocation showed that for manipulative skills, an
increasing pattern was observed (0.14, 0.28, and 0.42-units) when
reallocating 5, 10 and 15 minutes, respectively, from light PA to SB.
CONCLUSIONS: The current study highlights that school-time
composition is a significant predictor of FMS. Moreover, a modest
increase in SB, at the expense of LPA, during the school-time may elicit
a positive change in manipulative skills.