{"doi":"10.1002/ajhb.24162","title":"Calculation and Comparison of Step Guidelines for Preschooler Physical Activity While Indoors","abstract":"OBJECTIVES: Preschooler physical activity (PA) is vital for growth and development. The World Health Organization PA guidelines state preschoolers should achieve ≥ 180 min/day of Total PA (TPA) of which ≥ 60 min is moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA). A step/day recommendation to match these guidelines may be a more practical metric for caregivers to promote PA. The purpose of our investigation is to improve upon existing step recommendations by creating one for indoor-based activities, acknowledging where preschoolers spend most of their time, and various cut-points for PA. METHODS: In a laboratory study (Aim 1), a validated direct observation protocol was used to quantify preschooler PA intensity while performing indoor activities (n = 35). Actigraph GT3x accelerometers were placed on the waist, wrist, and ankle to measure step count. In a field study (Aim 2), habitual PA of 881 preschoolers (7113 valid days) via waist-worn accelerometers was used to assess the agreement between created guidelines (Aim 1) and other step recommendations with PA guidelines using Receiver Operating Characteristic and Area Under the Curve (ROC-AUC). RESULTS: In the laboratory study, calculated indoor step ranges were 6960-7440 (waist), 7200-8640 (wrist), and 7680-9120 (ankle) to align with existing PA guidance. In the field, the higher step guidelines (> 12 000) achieved very limited agreement, due to few preschoolers achieving this metric. The 6000 step/day guidelines had the highest agreement (AUCs: TPA: 0.637; MVPA: 0.751; TPA + MVPA: 0.761) with PA guideline. CONCLUSIONS: When preschoolers are indoors, 6000 steps may be the minimum for adequate PA.","journal":"American Journal of Human Biology","year":2024,"id":503976,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9568,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":254293,"name":"Leanne M. Redman","orcid":"0000-0002-7267-7374","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":342077,"name":"Cody D. Neshteruk","orcid":"0000-0002-0516-6873","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":342076,"name":"Derek Hales","orcid":"0000-0001-5014-3892","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":441663,"name":"Brian C. Helsel","orcid":"0000-0003-3362-3581","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":417872,"name":"Chelsea L. Kracht","orcid":"0000-0002-5467-0849","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1322104,"name":"Halle Roman","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":14,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:10:35.597333Z","pmid":"39340227","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}