Meeting the WHO 24-h guidelines among 2-6-year-old children by family socioeconomic status before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a repeated cross-sectional study.

Background: The World Health Organization (WHO) has developed guidelines for 24-h physical activity (PA), sedentary behaviour and sleep for young children. Lower socioeconomic status (SES) has been linked to a lower likelihood of meeting these guidelines. The outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) raised concerns about young children's opportunities to meet the guidelines. The study focused on the prevalence of meeting the WHO's 24-h guidelines on screen time (ST), PA and sleep among 2-6-year-old children, in association with family SES, before COVID-19 outbreak in 2019, and during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 in Finland. Methods: Data were collected at three timepoints by an online survey through day-care centres. Meeting the WHO 24-h guidelines was defined for each behaviour, from a parent-reported seven-day recall of a typical day on weekdays and weekend days and adapted to the national context. Children were considered to meet the ST guideline if they had maximum of 60 min of ST, the PA guideline if they had minimum of 60 min of outdoor PA, and the sleep guidelines if they had minimum of 11/10/9 h (2/3-5/6 years) of good or very good quality sleep. Binary logistic regression models were used to examine the odds ratios of meeting the guidelines. Results: The prevalence of meeting the ST guideline was highest before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019. The PA guideline was most met during the strict pandemic restrictions in 2020. Children from higher SES families were more likely to meet the ST and sleep duration guidelines either on weekdays or weekends. The PA guideline was met more on weekdays by children whose parents had lower education levels at all timepoints. In 2020, sleep quality guideline was less likely met by children with parents with the highest education levels. Conclusion: Higher SES may increase the odds of young children meeting the ST and sleep duration guidelines, but the results are more complex regarding PA and SES. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on ST, outdoor PA, and sleep of young children varied by family SES, and further research is recommended to identify causality of these relationships. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s44167-022-00010-4.

Screen media and non-screen media habits among preschool children in Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Finland: Insights from an unsupervised clustering approach.

The main purpose of the research was to describe the daily screen media habits and non-screen media habits like indoor and outdoor play, and sleep of preschool children aged 2 to 6 years from Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Finland using a content-validated online questionnaire (SMALLQ®) and unsupervised cluster analysis. Unsupervised cluster analysis on 5809 parent-reported weekday and weekend screen and non-screen media habits of preschool children from the four countries resulted in seven emergent clusters. Cluster 2 (n = 1288) or the Early-screen media, screen media-lite and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity-lite family made up 22.2% and Cluster 1 (n = 261) or the High-all-round activity and screen media-late family made up 4.5%, respectively represented the largest and smallest clusters among the seven clusters that were emergent from the pooled dataset. Finland was best represented by Cluster 2 and Japan was best represented by Cluster 3 (High-screen media-for-entertainment and low-engagement family). Parents from Finland and Japan displayed greater homogeneity in terms of the screen media and non-screen media habits of preschool children than the parents from South Korea and Singapore. South Korea was best represented by Clusters 6 (Screen media-physical activity-engagement hands-off family) and 7 (Screen media-lite, screen media-late and high-physical activity family). Singapore was best represented by Clusters 4, 5, 6 and 7, and these clusters ranged from Low all-round activity-high nap time family to Screen media-lite, screen media-late and high-physical activity family. Future research should explore in-depth reasons for the across-country and within-country cluster characteristics of screen media and non-screen media habits among preschool children to allow for more targeted interventions.

Sociodemographic Correlates of Parental Co-Participation in Digital Media Use and Physical Play of Preschool-Age Children.

Young children's digital media use and physical activity have gained attention in recent research. Parental co-participation has a major impact on children's health consequences. This study addressed a gap in the research by investigating daily parental co-participation in children's digital media use and physical play, using the family ecological model theoretical framework. The participants in this nationally representative cross-sectional study were 2512 Finnish parents with two- to six-year-old children. Parents completed a questionnaire. Sociodemographic correlates of co-participation and of the awareness of guidelines regarding co-participation and correlation between co-participation in digital media use and physical play were analysed. Parental co-participation in physical play and digital media use correlated positively. Lower parental age, male parental gender, Finnish and Swedish languages, a fewer number of children, and a male child gender were associated with more co-participation in one or both activities, and parental female gender and low family income were associated with more awareness. The awareness of guidelines was not associated with co-participation in digital media use. There were sociodemographic differences in parental co-participation. From a health counselling perspective, parents may benefit from national recommendations on digital media use and physical activity, but adherence to guidelines depends on the family context.