Effects of COVID-19 Confinement on the Household Routines Of Children in Portugal

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 disease (COVID-19) was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, and was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on 11 March, 2020. Since then, physical distancing measures such as confinement have been adopted by different governments to control human to human transmission. This study aimed to determine how confinement affects children’s routines, more specifically their physical activity (PA) and sedentary time. An online survey was launched to assess how Portuguese children under 13 years of age adjusted their daily routines to confinement. Parents reported the time each child was engaged in different activities throughout the day, which was used to calculate overall sedentary time and overall physical activity time. Based on the data of 2159 children, our study showed that during confinement: (i) there was a decrease in children’s physical activity time and an increase in screen time and family activities; (ii) boys engaged in more playful screen Time than girls (p
Highlights This study aimed to analyze how confinement affected children’s physical activity (PA) and sedentary time, during the COVID-19 pandemic, in Portugal. There was a decrease in children’s PA time, an increase in screen time, and family activities. The only sex differences were found on playful screen time and in play without PA. Along age groups, there was a trend for the increase of the overall sedentary time and an associated decrease of overall PA time. Low levels of PA among children have psychological, social, physical, and overall health implications that might persist in the long term.