{"doi":"10.1111/ijpo.12846","title":"Impact of the<scp>COVID</scp>‐19 pandemic on elementary schoolers' physical activity, sleep, screen time and diet: A quasi‐experimental interrupted time series study","abstract":"BACKGROUND: COVID-19 school closures pose a threat to children's wellbeing, but no COVID-19-related studies have assessed children's behaviours over multiple years . OBJECTIVE: To examine children's obesogenic behaviours during spring and summer of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to previous data collected from the same children during the same calendar period in the 2 years prior. METHODS: Physical activity and sleep data were collected via Fitbit Charge-2 in 231 children (7-12 years) over 6 weeks during spring and summer over 3 years. Parents reported their child's screen time and dietary intake via a survey on 2-3 random days/week. RESULTS: Children's behaviours worsened at a greater rate following the pandemic onset compared to pre-pandemic trends. During pandemic spring, sedentary behaviour increased (+79 min; 95% CI = 60.6, 97.1) and MVPA decreased (-10 min, 95% CI = -18.2, -1.1) compared to change in previous springs (2018-2019). Sleep timing shifted later (+124 min; 95% CI = 112.9, 135.5). Screen time (+97 min, 95% CI = 79.0, 115.4) and dietary intake increased (healthy: +0.3 foods, 95% CI = 0.2, 0.5; unhealthy: +1.2 foods, 95% CI = 1.0, 1.5). Similar patterns were observed during summer. CONCLUSIONS: Compared to pre-pandemic measures, children's PA, sedentary behaviour, sleep, screen time, and diet were adversely altered during the COVID-19 pandemic. This may ultimately exacerbate childhood obesity.","journal":"Pediatric Obesity","year":2021,"id":147907,"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":142,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9411,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":628952,"name":"Hannah Parker","orcid":"0000-0003-4197-7224","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":15515,"name":"R. Glenn Weaver","orcid":"0000-0001-5889-974X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":15514,"name":"Michael W. Beets","orcid":"0000-0001-6728-6742","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":15517,"name":"Alexis Jones","orcid":"0000-0003-2577-3248","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":236003,"name":"Elizabeth L. Adams","orcid":"0000-0002-5602-8470","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":24237,"name":"Jean-Philippe Chaput","orcid":"0000-0002-5607-5736","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":15519,"name":"Bridget Armstrong","orcid":"0000-0002-1909-8170","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":42132,"name":"Sarah Burkart","orcid":"0000-0002-0840-1680","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":54,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:42:35.448762Z","pmid":"34409754","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":[]}