Er is bij ouders vaak een klacht te horen dat kinderen en jongeren te weinig bewegen, en we weten uit eerder onderzoek dat dit vooral geldt voor meisjes. Er zijn hiervoor verschillende verklaringen (check bijvoorbeeld hier), een nieuw onderzoek bij 8- tot 12-jarigen geeft een ander puzzelstuk.

Ze merkten in een gecontroleerde setting (vrij ongewoon voor dergelijk onderzoek) dat de grootte van de keuze van spelmateriaal een bepalende invloed heeft op al dan niet meer actief zijn, en vooral bij meisjes. Opgelet, de n van de testgroep is behoorlijk beperkt.

James Roemmich stelt over het onderzoek:

“We wanted to see if providing children with choices or autonomy — the ability for the individual to decide how he or she wanted to be physically active — increased their intrinsic motivation to be physically active.”

Wat blijkt:

“The results showed that giving children more toy choices markedly increases their physical play, especially in girls. And giving children the opportunity to master games — including exergames, such as Wii games — also increases their physical play. The first UB study, published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sports, found that when there was only one toy to play with, boys engaged in 1.3 times longer active play than the girls.

But when children were provided access to a choice of active toys, physically active play time increased by nearly 200 percent for girls, compared to an increase of just 42 percent for boys.” (bron)

Verder bleek dat de optimale combinatie zit in vrije keuze en het verwerven van meesterschap in een spel: “Indeed, we found that the combination of autonomy (choosing from several different games) and mastery (playing exergames) produced the greatest increases in physical activity time.”

Wat wel is: terwijl de kinderen dubbel zo lang op een WII actief bleken, verbruikten ze slechts de helft van de energie bij het spelen van de actieve computerspelletjes in vergelijking met bijvoorbeeld traditionele balspelen.

Abstracten van het onderzoek:

Objectives

To determine whether increasing the choice of physical activity options increases the duration and intensity of children’s physically active play.

Design

This cross-sectional laboratory study included gender (male and female) and choice group [single toy (no choice), three toys (low choice), five toys (high choice)] as between participant factors.

Methods

Boys and girls (n=36, 8–12y) were stratified, randomly assigned to a choice group that always provided access to each participant’s most liked active toy(s), and allowed 60min of free time. The same sedentary alternatives were freely available to all participants. Physical activity outcomes were measured by accelerometry, heart rate, and direct observation.

Results

The number of active toys the children played with increased (p<0.001) across each choice group. Minutes spent in MPA were greater in the low choice (p<0.05) and high choice (p<0.02) groups than the no choice group. Active playtime was greater (p<0.01) in the low choice (79%) and high choice (95%) groups compared to the no choice group. Girls in the low and high choice groups had greater (p<0.05) percent heart rate reserve when compared to girls in the no choice group. There was no difference in the boys’ percent heart rate reserve between the no choice, low choice and high choice groups.

Conclusions

Increasing the choice of active toys increases both the duration and intensity of physically active play, especially in girls.