Child Care Setting and Its Association With Policies and Practices That Promote Physical Activity and Physical Literacy in the Early Years in British Columbia

Abstract

Background: Physical activity (PA) is critical to early child development, and child care is a key setting for promotion. The authors investigated differences in daily PA and sedentary behavior practices as well as physical environments between family child care (FCC) and group child care (GCC) settings for children aged 3–5 years in Canada. Methods: Group child care (n = 581) and FCC (n = 357) managers completed surveys assessing the implementation of PA promoting practices and description of their environments. Crosstabulation and chi-square tests of association were used to examine differences between GCC and FCC. Results: The prevalence of facilities implementing 120 minutes of active play (odds ratio [OR] 2.23; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.58–3.15), <30 minutes on screens (OR 1.35; 95% CI, 1.02–1.80), and 60-minute outdoors daily (OR 1.99; 95% CI, 1.4–2.9) was more likely in FCC compared with GCC. However, implementation of fundamental movement skill activities (OR 1.40; 95% CI, 1.01–1.92), breaking up prolonged sitting (OR 1.86; 95% CI, 1.36–2.5), and outdoor space for large group running games (OR 1.74; 95% CI, 1.07–2.83) were more likely in GCC. Conclusions: Child care setting was associated with daily PA and sedentary practices and outdoor space for PA. Interventions to support PA in child care should be tailored to different settings and the facilitators explored.