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Many adolescents, both rural and urban, are not meeting the recommended levels for physical activity (PA). This investigation was designed to elicit socioecologic barriers and facilitators for PA in rural and urban middle school youth and their parents. Thirteen focus groups were conducted with 41 youth and 50 parents from eastern North Carolina. Distance, cost, crime/danger and television were mentioned as the primary barriers among parents. Youth mentioned school policies related to PA and crime/danger as the main PA barriers. The most salient facilitators discussed by parents were social/peer facilitators, facilities available and parental role modeling of PA. The primary facilitators mentioned by youth were social outlets and facilities available. Results indicate that intrapersonal, interpersonal, environmental and policy factors related to PA resonated with both youth and parents. Since rural and urban residents often perceive and interact differently with PA environments, more research is needed to properly adapt interventions.

Measuring physical activity with objective tools, such as accelerometers, is becoming more common. Accelerometers measure acceleration multiple times within a given frequency and summarize this as a count over a pre-specified time period or epoch. The resultant count represents acceleration over the epoch length. Accelerometers eliminate biases associated with self-reporting measures of physical activity. With the increasingly widespread use of accelerometers, standardization of how the data are collected and reported across studies is needed. In 2005, Masse and colleagues identified five methodological issues regarding reducing accelerometer data to derive summary measures: (1) identifying accelerometer wearing time; (2) defining minimal wear time for a valid day; (3) identifying spurious data; (4) computing summary variables and aggregating days of data; and (5) extracting bouts of activity. This study focuses on the first issue; specifically, identifying nonwearing time of the accelerometer. Understanding whether the accelerometer is worn helps researchers assess compliance and determine if the participants' data will contribute to the resulting analyses. Defining wearing and nonwearing time also affects the derivation of summary physical activity measures, such as average counts per hour worn or minutes in sedentary, light, moderate, or vigorous activity. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

Background: In 2005, the North Carolina State Board of Education updated the Healthy Active Children Policy to include a requirement that all kindergarten through eighth-grade children receive at least 30 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity each school day through physical education, recess, and other creative approaches. This study describes how districts are meeting the physical activity-related portion of this policy and explores the policy implementation successes and challenges. Methods: An online survey was conducted in summer 2007 in all school districts in the state (response rate 106/111; 95.5%). Respondents were asked to describe the implementation successes and challenges associated with including 30 minutes of physical activity in the school day. Answers were double coded, checked, and grouped into themes. Results: The physical activity requirement was most often met through recess, physical education, classroom Energizers, and intramural sports. School districts reported numerous positive effects of the policy in elementary and middle schools. Benefits included increased student focus on studies, physical activity participation, awareness of healthy habits, alertness and enjoyment, and higher staff involvement. Implementation challenges to the policy included lack of time in the school day, teacher participation, and concerns about academics. Conclusions: School districts reported that implementation of the policy produced many positive results for students and staff. Addressing several implementation challenges common across school districts would strengthen the ongoing success of the policy. (Contains 3 tables.)