Changing Sedentary Behavior in Children and Adolescents: Understanding Research and Alternative Clues and Cues for Behavioral Formation and Change

Abstract

As children and adolescents who are identified as sedentary or physically inactive fall below the established world-wide physical activity guidelines for daily levels of physical activities, there is a need to examine factors that will influence the formation and change of sedentary behavior. This chapter is an analytical identification and appraisal of recent research and alternative approaches toward changing sedentary and inactive behavior and is founded on two premises: the first is that underlying concepts-related sedentary behavior are discussed and understood and the second is that effective and successful methodological interventions identified in four recent systematic reviews of 310 studies involving over a million children and adolescents that focused on a plethora of health, physical activity, and other related parameters leave clues that generate cues aimed at reducing sedentary and increasing physical activity behaviors. In this chapter, clues and cues related to conceptual and methodological factors, intervention development and evaluation, and alternative approaches with the aim of increasing the physical activity and healthy lifestyle behaviors and decreasing sedentary behaviors of children and adolescents are examined.