Pringle, A., Gilson, N., McKenna, J., and
Cooke, C.(2009) ‘An evaluation of the
Local Exercise
Action Pilots and impact on moderate physical activity’, in Health Education
Journal, 68 (3): 179 – 185.
[Another sports science piece with the usual
amazing definitions, heavy statistics, special pleading, and lots of
talking up
at the end].
Data was gathered on no less
than 10,433 people
from ten sites, 2004-06.However, only 1022 actually completed from baseline
to the end of the
project.Those completers did show
increased overall activity levels, with pleasing results for the
sedentary and lightly
active.Methods used include
questionnaires and self report devices. Measures of activity were MPA
MET –
minutes/week [We were told that MPA stood for moderate physical
activity, but I
had to look up MET – minutes/week.Apparently it is a metabolic unit which assumes that
the baseline is
metabolic activity at rest: as exercise increases, so does metabolic
activity,
so that exercise of 20 minutes per week involving activity, not at
rest, gives
an MET score of 20. See the IPAQ scoring protocol below for more
details]
Participation in MPA for 30 minutes, five times a
week can
prevent chronic health conditions.However, worldwide participation rates are low, and
in the UK ‘70% of
adults, 30% of boys and 40% of girls were found to be insufficiently
active’ (180).Targets aim to increase the
rate of activity,
and there have been national interventions, including LEAP, ‘a
£2.6 million government funded physical activity intervention’
(180).
Ten sites across England participated between 2004
and
2006.Inactive individuals were
targeted, defined as doing less than 30 minutes of MPA at least five
times a
week for adults, and 60 for young people [so the usual problems with
drawing the boundary here].Participants were recruited 'through media,
outreach work, local practitioners in health, education and community
services'
(180).Interventions offered 'exercise
referral, classes and groups, peer mentoring, motivational
interviewing,
campaigns, outdoor activity and training physical activity leaders'
(180).
Nine sites took part in evaluation. Data collected
included
demographic stuff on age, gender, ethnicity and socio economic status.MPA was assessed before, during and after the
intervention, using 'validated, seven day self reports' .Children and young people also completed 'two
interview administered/diary based questionnaires', while adults did
the self
administered International Physical Activity Questionnaire (181).Evaluators collected and screened data.Descriptive statistics were produced for
demographic characteristics.MPA MET-
minutes/week were calculated pre intervention and during intervention,
and
intervention effects calculated, and differences were tested for
significance.
Only 5324 participants provided suitable data, and
only 1022
completed.The characteristics of
completers were compared using demographic characteristics, and they
had turned
out to be 'principally older people [61%] and white British [87.5%], in
managerial/professional occupations [63.1%]' (181).Comparisons did show 'a significant, positive
intervention effect, shown by changes in the average score of MET -
minutes/week’
(181).
Among the completers, 80% reported that they have
maintained
their levels of MPA at follow-up.59% of
completers who were sedentary or only lightly active achieved
recommended
guidelines at intervention.The effect
was particularly noticeable with sedentary completers—'80.9% of these
became lightly,
moderately or highly active at intervention' (182).
Overall, national interventions seemed to be
effective,
especially for those who were sedentary or lightly active.These groups will benefit most from
investment in programmes like this even if they do not attain national
guidelines.Adherence to MPA over the
long term is also promising [but how long a term did ensue between the
end of
the intervention and a follow-up? Can we assume it was between 2004 and
2006
for everyone?] Although this was an unusually large sample and the
national
study, there were difficulties in collecting data.The data also show a wide variability in
change in MPA, 'indicating that the interventions elicited increases
for some,
yet failed to encourage increases in others' (183).The authors suspects that local variations
were responsible. Future research needs to do something to capture more
data,
but nevertheless, the value of LEAP in making a contribution to meeting
targets
seems clear [talk up here than as usual].
The questions are like this ( I have
slightly modified the actual layout)
In
answering the following
questions,
¨
vigorous
physical
activities
refer to activities that take hard physical effort and make you
breathe much harder that normal.
¨
moderate
activities
refer
to activities that take moderate physical effort and make you breathe
somewhat harder that normal
1a. During
the last 7 days, on how
many days did you do vigorous physical activities like heavy
lifting,
digging, aerobics, or fast bicycling,?
Think
about only those physical
activities that you did for at least 10 minutes at a time.
________
days per
week
1b.
How much time in total did you usually spend on one of those days doing
vigorous
physical activities?
_____
hours ______
minutes
or
none
2a. Again,
think only about
those physical activities that you did for at least 10 minutes at a
time.
During the last 7 days, on how many days did you do moderate physical
activities
like carrying light loads, bicycling at a regular pace, or doubles
tennis? Do not include walking.
________
days per
week
2b.
How much time in total did you usually spend on one of those days doing
moderate
physical activities?
_____
hours ______
minutes
or
none
3a. During
the last 7 days, on how
many days did you walk for at least 10 minutes at a time? This
includes
walking at work and at home, walking to travel from place to place, and
any
other walking that you did solely for recreation, sport, exercise or
leisure.
________
days per
week
3b.
How much time in total did you usually spend walking on one of those
days?
_____
hours ______
minutes
or none
The last
question is
about the time you spent sitting on weekdays while at work, at home,
while
doing course work and during leisure time. This includes time spent
sitting at
a desk, visiting friends, reading traveling on a bus or sitting or
lying down
to watch television.
4. During
the last 7 days, how much
time in total did you usually spend sitting on a week day?
____ hours
______
minutes
This
is the end of questionnaire, thank you
for participating.
IPAQ stands for
International Physical Activity Questionnaire. It is available
in several languages.This is the short version in English . There are
some obvious problems of definition (like ‘somewhat’),and the examples
are a
bit odd – heavy digging? Playing doubles tennis? It also assumes quite
a
detailed memory. The longer one
[http://www.ipaq.ki.se/questionnaires/IPAQ_LS_rev021114.pdf],
for adults asks more questions about job-related activities, transport,
leisure
– and housework (at last).
Check out the scoring
protocol on http://www.ipaq.ki.se/scoring.pdf
for a justification for things like setting boundaries at some many
steps or
METs