The role of sediment microbial communities in regulating the loss and retention of nutrients in aquatic ecosystems has been increasingly recognised. However, in the Great Lakes, where nutrient mitigation focuses on harmful algal blooms, there are limited studies examining the fundamental role of water/sediment microbes in nutrient biogeochemical cycling. Little is understood in this regard considering the increase in anthropogenic pressure on in-stream biological processes impacting nutrient flux to lakes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Public Health
August 2023
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in marked impacts on children's physical activity, with large reductions in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) reported during lockdowns. Previous evidence showed children's activity levels were lower and sedentary time higher immediately post-COVID lockdown, while there was little change in parental physical activity. We need to know if these patterns persist.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Background One in seven UK children have obesity when starting school, with higher prevalence associated with deprivation. Most pre-school children do not meet UK recommendations for physical activity and nutrition. Formal childcare settings provide opportunities to deliver interventions to improve nutritional quality and physical activity to the majority of 3-4-year-olds.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic have led to increased screen-viewing among children, especially during strict periods of lockdown. However, the extent to which screen-viewing patterns in UK school children have changed post lockdowns is unclear. The aim of this paper is to examine how screen-viewing changed in 10-11-year-old children over the 2020-21 COVID-19 pandemic, how this compares to before the pandemic, and the influences on screen-viewing behaviour.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Active-6 is exploring how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted physical activity behaviour among Year 6 children (aged 10-11 years) and their parents in Southwest England. Initial findings from the Active-6 project have shown a 7-8 min decrease in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and an increase in sedentary behaviour among children following the easing of restrictions in the UK in latter half of 2021. This finding suggests that the pandemic has had a persistent impact on child physical activity behaviour.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings offer a potentially cost-effective and sustainable solution for ensuring children have opportunities to meet physical activity (PA) and sedentary time (ST) guidelines. This paper systematically reviewed the association between childcare environment and practice and children's PA and ST.
Methods: Three electronic databases were searched, and citation tracking of eligible studies performed between June-July 2020 (updated March 2022).
Background: Restrictions due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic reduced physical activity provision for both children and their parents. Recent studies have reported decreases in physical activity levels during lockdown restrictions, but these were largely reliant on self-report methods, with data collected via unrepresentative self-report surveys. The post-pandemic impacts on children's activity levels remain unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
July 2021
Strategies to address declining physical activity levels among children and adolescents have focused on 'individual-level' approaches which often fail to demonstrate impact. Recent attention has been on an alternative 'whole-school' approach to increasing physical activity that involves promoting physical activity throughout all aspects of the school environment. There is, however, a lack of evidence on how whole-school physical activity approaches could be implemented in the UK.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Physical activity is associated with improved health. Girls are less active than boys. Pilot work showed that a peer-led physical activity intervention called PLAN-A was a promising method of increasing physical activity in secondary school age girls.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Adolescent girls are less physically active than recommended for health, and levels decline further as they approach adulthood. Peers can influence adolescent girls' physical activity. Interventions capitalising on peer support could positively impact physical activity behaviour in this group.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis research is an example of a service learning partnership between a prelicensure nursing program and local school district. Through this partnership, students participated in a thoughtfully organized project that met the needs of a community and promoted the humanizing of health care education. Nursing students, under the guidance of faculty, performed required physical examinations for Special Olympics athletes who represented a wide range of age, physical, social, and intellectual levels.
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