School facility utilization, physical activity, and sedentary time among children in Puerto Rico

Knowledge regarding relationships between child physical activity (PA), sedentary time (ST), physical education (PE) time, and use of school PA facilities come from studies that evaluate PA during PE class or a single school day, rather than the school week. To test relationships between the PE time, school facility utilization, and objectively measured PA and ST over the course of a 5-day school week. Six-to-9-year-old primary school students in Puerto Rico (N = 131) wore accelerometers during school hours for 1 week. Time spent in PE class was provided by school administrators and use of school PA facilities was acquired via student report. Multiple linear regressions tested relationships between moderate–vigorous PA (MVPA), ST, and use of PA facilities. One-way ANCOVA compared MVPA and ST by time spent in PE class. Neither time in PE class nor reported use of PA facilities were related to MVPA or ST during the school week after controlling for sex, age, and accelerometer wear time. Despite previous findings that these factors are related during single class periods, single after-school days and single school days, relationships were not observed in the school week. This is potentially due to the compensation effect, in which children balance out highly active days with more sedentary behavior the following day, and more sedentary days with more active behavior the following day.