RAND > Reports & Bookstore > External Publications > EP-20070517

HomeGo to RAND HomeReports and Book Store Book Sale: Selected publications 40% off
Share

Document Information

Weekend Schoolyard Accessibility, Physical Activity, and Obesity

The Trial of Activity in Adolescent Girls (TAAG) Study

Cover Image

By: Molly M. Scott, Deborah Cohen, Kelly R. Evenson, John Elder, Diane Catellier, J. Scott Ashwood, Adrian Overton

OBJECTIVES: To assess the accessibility and suitability of schools as recreational sites and to determine whether they are associated with young adolescent girls' weekend metabolic equivalent-weighted moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and body mass index (BMI). METHODS: The authors drew a half-mile (0.805 km) radius around the residences of participants in the Trial of Activity for Adolescent Girls (n = 1556) in Maryland, South Carolina, Minnesota, Louisiana, California, and Arizona. The authors visited all schools and parks within the defined distance and documented their amenities and accessibility on Saturdays in Spring 2003. Staff gathered data on each girls' height and weight and used accelerometers to record weekend metabolic equivalent-weighted moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. RESULTS: Schools represented 44% of potential neighborhood sites for physical activity. However, a third of schools were inaccessible on the Saturday the authors visited. Neighborhoods with locked schools were primarily non-white, older, more densely populated, and of lower socioeconomic status. Though there was no relationship between school accessibility on Saturdays and weekend metabolic equivalent-weighted moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, the number of locked schools was associated with significantly higher body mass index. CONCLUSIONS: The lack of relationship between metabolic equivalent-weighted moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and school accessibility may imply that young adolescent girls do not identify schools as recreational resources. However, due to the association between body mass index and locked schools, efforts to stem the obesity epidemic should include making schools more accessible.

See Also:

Published in: Preventive Medicine, v. 44, no. 5, May 2007, p. [398]-403.

Many RAND studies are published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, as chapters in commercial books, or as documents published by other organizations. RAND tracks such documents as External Publications (EP) by registering them in its corporate bibliographic database and directing users to the original publisher or by providing a link to the document. All items in the EP series have been formally reviewed in accordance with the publisher's editorial policy.

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.

* RAND research is conducted across divisions, centers, and projects; these organizational components are represented in the "Related RAND Divisions" section above.

Stay Informed Subscribe to RSS Feeds Search RAND Publications View Cart