The purpose of this small study is find out how practical it is to provide an intervention in primary school playgrounds that aims to increase levels of physical activity in pre-school children. We want to find out how acceptable the intervention is to families and schools.
Parents of pre-school children aged 18 months – 4 years old will be invited to take part. Parents will be asked to complete some questions about their own and their child’s wellbeing, and their own self-confidence. Children will be asked to wear activity monitors, similar to pedometers, for 6 days, to assess their physical activity level. They will also have their height, weight, waist and upper arm circumference measured. Schools will then be allocated to either the “PiP intervention” group or the “control” no intervention group.
Schools will have a 50/50 chance of being in either group. Families attending schools allocated to the PiP intervention will take part in the intervention, whereas families attending control schools will continue their routines as normal.
All families in the intervention and control groups will complete more questions and be measured again twice during the intervention/control period and once again at the end of the study (one year after the first measurements).
