A new web app links children’s daily activities to health.

Researchers studying how children’s daily activity is related to their health developed a web app that showed users how shifting between activities during the day affected their health and academic performance. The new app and the data used to develop it are described in a paper published this week in an open access journal. PLOS One Dorothea Dumuid and colleagues at the University of South Australia.

How we use our time can affect our health, well-being, and productivity, but the relationship between time use and outcomes can be challenging to interpret for health professionals and the general public.

In the new study, the researchers used data from 1,685 eleven- to twelve-year-olds enrolled in the Australian Child Health Checkpoint Study. Time spent in daily activities was obtained from a 24-hour recall instrument in which children self-reported their activities during the previous day within 5 minutes. Data on body fat percentage, psychosocial health, and academic performance were also available for each participant. After adjusting for age, socioeconomics, and adolescent status, they found that how people use their time was significantly associated with body fat percentage (F=2.66, p<0.001), psychosocial health (F=4.02, p<0.001), and academic performance. (F=2.76, p<0.001).

To provide a simple and interactive way to understand the strength of these associations, the authors created a web application where users can enter their initial time allocations and see how changes in their time use occur. For example, switching 60 minutes from screen time to physical activity was associated with an average of 4.2% lower body fat (-0.8). [95% CI -1.0 to -0.5] percentiles), 2.5% better psychosocial health (+1.9 [1.4 to 2.5] PedsQL psychosocial health score) and 0.9% higher academic achievement (+4.5 [1.8 to 7.2] NAPLAN Writing Score). However, the benefits may be reduced if exercise time is diverted from other activities.

The authors say that the Healthy-Day app is the first to customize the impact of time allocation and will enable better engagement and understanding of the data not only by researchers, but also by public health advocates, clinicians, and exercise professionals. professionals, policy makers and general public members.

“Sleep, exercise, screen time, homework—there are so many competing demands on our children’s time because there are only 24 hours in a day,” the authors added. They are thought to affect children’s health and well-being.”