Michelle R Stone

Dalhousie University | Dal · School of Health and Human Performance

Introduction Health-focused communities can promote physical activity for children by providing them with safe and supportive environments to move. Across the COVID-19 pandemic many community spaces and services were closed due to public health restrictions. During the pandemic, Atlantic Canada uniquely implemented an agreement between four provinc...

Background Like many places globally, the health and well-being of children and youth living in Canada were significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Restricted access to the outdoors, schools, and public green spaces impacted children’s physical activity (PA), sedentary behaviour, and sleep. Restrictions changed throughout the pandemic, and...

Background Physical activity participation among preschoolers in childcare settings are low, and interventions to increase physical activity levels have produced mixed results. The Physical Literacy in the Early Years (PLEY) project implemented a six-month childcare-based outdoor loose parts play intervention in childcare centres in Nova Scotia, Ca...

Increasing rates of physical inactivity and sedentary behaviours among children and the youth are important determinants of chronic disease. Supporting children's participation in organised physical activities like sports has been promoted as a public health strategy to increase physical activity. Evidence shows that successful interventions are fa...

Outdoor play with its risks is necessary for optimal child development. Increasing attention is being paid to factors influencing children's opportunities for risky outdoor play, with parent/guardian (hereafter parent) perceptions being an important, under-researched topic. This research explored parents’ perceptions of preschoolers’ risky outdoor...

Development of fundamental movement skills in early childhood supports lifelong health. The potential for outdoor play with loose parts to enhance fundamental movement skills has not been investigated. A multi-methods randomized controlled design was used to determine the efficacy of integrating outdoor loose parts play into Nova Scotia childcare c...

Outdoor play is fundamental to children’s physical, mental, and socio-emotional development. However, with the sudden emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, several restrictions have been put in place limiting the way children play, which has unfortunately impacted their physical and emotional health and well being. This commentary discusses why outdo...

Purpose Physical activity (PA) and sleep are highly important for those with cystic fibrosis (CF), yet, despite this and suggestions of a bidirectional relationship between these factors in healthy children, their relationship is yet to be investigated. Methods PA, sedentary time (SED), and sleep were objectively derived over seven days in 58 yout...

It is important to consider physical activity and movement in early life to ensure children establish and maintain healthy physical activity patterns. Recent evidence has highlighted the importance of outdoor play and the childcare environment. Active outdoor play, especially free play, supports independence, self-regulation and allows children to...

Background: The Physical Literacy in the Early Years (PLEY) intervention is a randomized mixed-methods controlled trial focused on embedding loose parts materials into the outdoor play spaces of regulated child care centres across Nova Scotia. The aim is to evaluate the efficacy of the PLEY intervention versus standard regulated childcare practice...

The objective of this study was to describe the levels and bouts of physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviour (SB) among preschoolers in Nova Scotia, Canada, and the proportion meeting PA and step guidelines. Children (75 boys, 49 girls; mean age = 4.2 (range = 3–5 years)) participating in the Physical Literacy in the Early Years (PLEY) study...

Background: The associations between cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and physical literacy in children are largely unknown. The aim of this study was to assess the relationships between CRF, measured using the 20-m shuttle run test (20mSRT), and components of physical literacy among Canadian children aged 8-12 years. Methods: A total of 9393 (49...

Background Physical literacy is the foundation of a physically active lifestyle. Sedentary behaviour displays deleterious associations with important health indicators in children. However, the association between sedentary behaviour and physical literacy is unknown. The purpose of this study was to identify the aspects of physical literacy that ar...

Background: The current physical literacy level of Canadian children is unknown. The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) Learn to Play - Canadian Assessment of Physical Literacy (CAPL) project, which is anchored in the Canadian consensus statement definition of physical literacy, aimed to help establish the current physical literacy level of Canadian child...

Abstract Background Quality physical education (PE) contributes to the development of physical literacy among children, yet little is known about how teacher training relates to this development. We assessed the association between teacher training, and the likelihood that children met recommended achievement levels for components of physical liter...

Abstract Background Physical literacy is an emerging construct in children’s health promotion, and may impact their lifelong physical activity habits. However, recent data reveal that only a small portion of Canadian children are regularly physically active and/or meet sedentary behaviour guidelines. To our knowledge, no study has investigated the...

Active play has become a critical focus in terms of physical activity participation in young children. Unstructured or child-led play offers children the opportunity to interact with the environment in a range of different ways. Unstructured materials, often called loose parts, encourage child-led play, and therefore may also promote physical activ...

Cycling to/from school can increase physical activity and physical fitness, but it is uncommon among North American children. Few studies have examined the correlates of cycling to/from school. We examined the concordance between children׳s preferred and actual school travel mode, and compared children who are driven to or from school but who would...

Purpose Physical activity (PA) is an effective intervention for improving the quality of life of colorectal cancer survivors (CRC) and may reduce the risk of cancer recurrence and cancer specific and all-cause mortality. However, most CRC survivors are not sufficiently active to receive these benefits. Sedentary behavior (SB) has also been linked t...

The objective of this study was to identify facilitators and barriers to effective School Travel Planning (STP) implementation.

Objective The objective of this study is to assess the prevalence of overweight among 10–12-year-old South Asian children in comparison to non-South Asian children. Methods This cross-sectional study obtained data from 16 schools in Toronto, Ontario. The analysis included 734 children (260 South Asian and 475 non-South Asian) aged 10–12 years. H...

The purpose of this study was to examine the association between the hours of outdoor play and objective measures of physical activity and identify the correlates of outdoor playing time in terms of parental perceptions of the neighbourhood environment. Time spent in outdoor play, both on a typical weekday and a typical weekend day, and neighbourho...

Objective Active School Travel (AST) can significantly contribute to children׳s physical activity levels. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate a Canadian School Travel Planning (STP) intervention, by examining child, family, and school-level characteristics that are associated with mode shift from driving to AST one year post-interve...

Objectives: The objective was to examine how access to fast food restaurants, less healthy/healthier food outlets and supermarkets relate to measured levels of overweight and obesity among grade 5 and 6 students. Methods: Measured height and weight data were obtained to measure BMI. The location and type of food outlet were derived from Toronto...

Objectives To determine the amount of time children play outdoors and examine associations with weekday, weekend and after-school physical activity (PA), sedentary behavior (SB), and weight-status (normal-weight, overweight/obese). Methods Data were extracted from Project BEAT (Toronto, 2010–2011; www.beat.utoronto.ca). Children's (n = 856; mean a...

BACKGROUNDA pan-Canadian School Travel Planning intervention promoted active school travel (AST). A novel component was exploring emotion, well-being, and travel mode framed by the concept of “sustainable happiness.” Relationships between travel mode and emotions, parent perceptions of their child's travel mode on well-being, and factors related to...

Objectives Declines in children's outdoor play (OP) have been documented globally, which are partly due to heightened restrictions around children's independent mobility (CIM). Literature on OP and CIM is increasing, yet no paper has summarized the various methodological approaches used. A methodological review could highlight most commonly used me...

Background There is evidence of school level variability in the physical activity of children and youth. Less is known about factors that may contribute to this variation. The purpose of this study was to examine if the school health environment (Healthy Physical Environment, Instruction and Programs, Supportive Social Environment, and Community Pa...

Rates of active school travel have declined over time in line with decreasing levels of physical activity among children. Understanding why some children are driven to school when walking is an option is important for future intervention. The purpose of this study was to evaluate demographic characteristics, parent/family level factors, attitudinal...

Children’s independent mobility (CIM), or a child’s freedom to explore their neighbourhood unsupervised, is important for their psychological development and potentially enables daily physical activity. However, the correlates of CIM remain under-studied particularly in terms of the influence of the neighbourhood environment. Within this context, c...

To make robust conclusions regarding the association between accelerometer-measured sedentary time and overweight and obesity among children, several gaps in the literature must be addressed. The purpose of this study was to examine associations between sedentary time, weekday sedentary time, weekend sedentary time, sedentary bouts, sedentary break...

Children's independent mobility (CIM) is critical to healthy development in childhood. The physical layout and social characteristics of neighbourhoods can impact opportunities for CIM. While global evidence is mounting on CIM, to the authors' knowledge, Canadian data on CIM and related health outcomes (i.e., physical activity (PA) behaviour) are m...

Walking to school is associated with higher levels of physical activity. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between school travel mode and physical activity using a sampling frame that purposefully locates schools in varying neighbourhoods. Cross-sectional survey of 785 children (10.57 +/- 0.7 years) in Toronto, Canada. Physi...

Objectives: School route measurement often involves estimating the shortest network path. We challenged the relatively uncritical adoption of this method in school travel research and tested the route discordance hypothesis that several types of difference exist between shortest network paths and reported school routes. Methods: We constructed t...

The Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS) is the most comprehensive direct health measures survey ever conducted in Canada. Results show that the majority of children and youth (93%) do not meet current physical activity recommendations for health. CHMS data have not yet been considered alongside an independent sample of Canadian youth; such a Can...

Introduction L'Enquête canadienne sur les mesures de la santé (ECMS) est l'enquête directe sur les mesures de la santé la plus complète jamais réalisée au Canada. Ses résultats indiquent que la majorité des enfants et des jeunes (93 %) n'ont pas un niveau d'activité physique conforme aux recommandations actuelles en la matière pour une bonne santé....

Background Existing research suggests consistent negative mental health associations (e.g., self-esteem) with sedentary behaviour (primarily screen viewing) among children. Sedentary behaviour has typically been measured using self-report or by objective measures of time spent sedentary. Objective The objective of this study was to examine the ass...

Objective: Given evidence of weekday-weekend variability in children's sleep and associations with obesity there is rationale for exploring sleep in relation to weekday and weekend physical activity (PA) and examining whether weekday-weekend variations in sleep impact physical activity. Methods: Children's (n=856) physical activity was measured...

In 2005, the Ontario Ministry of Education announced a policy requiring that all elementary students be provided with opportunities to participate in a minimum of 20 minutes of sustained moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) each school day during instructional time. To the authors' knowledge, this policy has never been formally evaluated....

Objective: A child's opportunity for physical activity and the safety of engaging in activity are influenced by built environment (BE) elements. This study examined the relationship of neighbourhood type and socio-economic status (SES) with activity using a sampling frame that purposely located schools in varying neighbourhoods to ensure that ther...

The aims of this study were to identity the prevalence of carpooling as a school travel mode in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) and to examine attitudes toward automobile school travel and carpooling among adults who drive their children to school. Telephone interviews were conducted with 1,001 GTHA parents/guardians of elementary scho...

To assess whether the activity pattern differs between normal weight and overweight boys across weekdays and weekend days. Physical activity was recorded every 2 s by accelerometry in 32 normal weight and 15 overweight boys aged 8-10 years for four weekdays and two weekend days (South-West England 2007). Summary activity measures and activity patte...

Objective. Spontaneous and transitory movement patterns are characteristic of children. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between short, frequent activity bouts and children's health. Methods. Physical activity was recorded every 2 s by accelerometry (ActiGraph GT1M) for seven days in 47 boys (age 8-10 years). Summary activity m...

It is unknown whether relationships detected between physical activity intensity and health differ according to accelerometer thresholds used [sample-specific thresholds (SSTs), published thresholds (PTs) or the individualized activity-related time equivalent (ArteACC)]. SSTs were developed through Acti- Graph calibration in 52 boys, aged 8-10 year...

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of age and leg length on the energy-expenditure predictions of five activity monitors. Participants (N=86, ages 8-40 years) performed three progressive bouts of treadmill activity ranging from 4 to 12 km/hr. Differences between measured energy expenditure (VO2) and activity-monitor-predicted en...

Studies have reported strong linear relationships between accelerometer output and walking/running speeds up to 10 km x h(-1). However, ActiGraph uniaxial accelerometer counts plateau at higher speeds. The aim of this study was to determine the relationships of triaxial accelerometry, uniaxial accelerometry, and pedometry with speed and step freque...