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Background: Physical activity is important for children with congenital heart defects (CHD), not only for somatic health, but also for neurologic, emotional, and psychosocial development. Swimming is a popular endurance sport which is in general suitable for most children with CHD. Since we have previously shown that children with CHD are less frequently physically active than their healthy peers, we hypothesized that the prevalence of non-swimmers is higher in CHD patients than in healthy children. Methods: To obtain representative data, we performed a nationwide survey in collaboration with the German National Register of Congenital Heart Defects (NRCHD) and the Institute for Sport Sciences of the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT). The questionnaire included questions capturing the prevalence of swimming skills and the timing of swim learning and was part of the “Motorik-Modul” (MoMo) from the German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS). A representative age-matched subset of 4569 participants of the MoMo wave two study served as a healthy control group. Results: From 894 CHD-patients (mean age of 12.5 ± 3.1 years), the proportion of non-swimmers in children with CHD was significantly higher (16% versus 4.3%; p < 0.001) compared to healthy children and was dependent on CHD severity: Children with complex CHD had an almost five-fold increased risk (20.4%) of being unable to swim, whereas in children with simple CHD, the ability to swim did not differ significantly from their healthy reference group (5.6% vs. 4.3% non-swimmers (p = not significant). Conclusions: According to our results, one in five patients with complex CHD are non-swimmers, a situation that is concerning in regard of motoric development, inclusion and integration, as well as prevention of drowning accidents. Implementation of swim learning interventions for children with CHD would be a reasonable approach.

Background: To overcome the high prevalence of inactivity in children and adolescents different domains of physical activity such as active transport need to be targeted in intervention programs. Purpose: The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence, time-trend, and socio-demographic correlates of ACS in a nationwide sample of girls and boys from Germany. Methods: Self-reports on commuting to school and its socio-demographic correlates from 11,387 participants aged 4 to 17 years were analyzed at three measurement points between 2003 and 2017. The sample is representative regarding sex, age, region, migration background, and education level among children and adolescents in Germany (MoMo-Study). Results: Overall, ACS decreased from 84.4% in 2003-2006 to 78.3% in 2014-2017. The proportion of passive commuting predominantly increased in children aged 4-5, in children with low and medium SES, and in small and medium-sized towns. No gender differences were found in active commuting. Results of multinomial logistic regression identified age, migrations background and residential area as correlates of walking in boys. In girls, the chance of walking, bicycling and taking public transport compared to motorized transport increased with age. Conclusions: Intervention programs to increase active transport in children and adolescents should target different age groups and promote parental involvement to change children���s choice of transport mode. Funding: MoMo is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (funding reference number: 01ER1503) within the research program ��long-term studies` in public health research., The Health & Fitness Journal of Canada, Vol. 14 No. 3 (2021): Proceedings from the 8th International Society for Physical Activity and Health Congress

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-heb-10.1177_10901981221090153 for Urban-Rural Differences in Children’s and Adolescent’s Physical Activity and Screen-Time Trends Across 15 Years by Carina Nigg, Christoph Weber, Jasper Schipperijn, Markus Reichert, Doris Oriwol, Annette Worth, Alexander Woll and Claudia Niessner in Health Education & Behavior

With the outbreak of the Corona Virus Disease 19 (Covid-19) in late 2019, governments increasingly imposed containment strategies, including social distancing as well as restricted population movement, potentially having negative impacts on mental and physical health. A growing number of studies have examined the impact of the pandemic on different facets of physical activity (PA); an overview combining these (mixed) results, however, is missing. Thus, the objective of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to investigate whether and to which extent PA changed from before to during the Covid-19 pandemic, taking age, gender, and measurement method into account. The literature search was conducted using PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus. Results of the main characteristics were descriptively synthesized and analyzed in a meta-analysis quantifying effects of the pandemic on PA divided by age groups, with additional subgroup analyses of the characteristics age, gender, and measurement method being narratively synthesized. Overall, 57 studies with a total sample size of 119,094 participants (N between 10 and 60,560 subjects) from 14 countries worldwide with participants aged between four and 93 years were included. Thirty-two studies revealed a significant decline in PA, whereas only five studies found a significant increase in PA during the Covid-19 pandemic. Fourteen studies revealed mixed results. PA decreased in all age groups, independent of gender. Most self-reported and all device-based measurement methods showed a reduction in PA. However, effects were not found to be significant in all age groups. Nevertheless, the declining trend should be noted and governments should strive to enable PA within periods of pandemic restrictions, or promote alternatives such as digital training to avoid negative health consequences within the population.

Additional file 1: Text S1. Equations of the linear regression models. Table S1. Descriptive results of the whole study sample regarding socio-demographic information, weight status, and outcome variables (N = 2843). Table S2. Results of the multiple linear regression models predicting moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. Table S3. Results of the multiple linear regression models predicting long jump (centimeters). Table S4. Results of the multiple linear regression models predicting mental health. Table S5. Selected models including the reporting of co-variates. Figure S1. Variation regarding the relationship between nature indices, buffer types, and buffer distances for moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) across youth with low and high socio-economic status compared to youth with medium socio-economic status (reference category). Figure S2. Variation regarding the relationship between nature indices, buffer types, and buffer distances for moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) at the weekend and during the week. Figure S3. Variations regarding the relationship between nature indices, buffer types, and buffer distances across age for standing long jump distance. Figure S5. Variation regarding the relationship between nature indices, buffer types, and buffer distances across age regarding SDQ score.

Little is known about behavioral transfer and compensation within and between moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary behavior. Thus, taking a within-person perspective, this study investigated across 1 week whether (a) children and adolescents compensate for increased MVPA and sedentary behavior with less of the respective behavior the next day and (b) transfer and compensation occur between these behaviors within 1 day and across 2 days. We obtained data from 2676 participants (6–17 years) of the national Motorik-Modul (MoMo) study in Germany. Participants wore an ActiGraph accelerometer (Pensacola, FL, USA) for 7 days. We analyzed within- and between-day associations using hierarchical linear modeling. If youth engaged in 2 h more sedentary behavior than typical on any given day, they engaged in 37.20 min less MVPA the same day (B = −0.31, p