BMI status and associations between affect, physical activity and anxiety among U.S. children during COVID ‐19

  1. Jasmin M. Alves
  2. Alexandra G. Yunker
  3. Alexis DeFendis
  4. Anny H. Xiang
  5. Kathleen A. Page

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Abstract

Background

There is concern regarding how the COVID‐19 pandemic may impact the psychological and physical health of children, but to date, studies on mental health during the pandemic in children are limited. Furthermore, unprecedented lifestyle stressors associated with the pandemic may aggravate the childhood obesity epidemic, but the role of BMI on child activity levels and psychological outcomes during COVID‐19 is unknown.

Objectives

We investigated how emotional responses (positive/negative affect), physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviours related to anxiety among U.S. children with healthy weight and overweight/obesity during the pandemic.

Methods

Sixty‐four typically developing children (63% girls, 53% healthy weight) aged 9 to 15 years completed two virtual visits during the height of ‘stay‐at‐home’ measures from April 22 to July 29, 2020. Children completed 24‐hours PA recalls, state portion of State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children and the 10‐item Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for Children.

Results

Independent of child BMI status, child anxiety scores were over five standard deviations greater than normative values from paediatric populations prior to the pandemic. Higher positive affect and PA were each associated with reduced anxiety levels in children with overweight/obesity, whereas higher positive affect was associated with reduced anxiety in children with healthy weight. Greater leisure screen time was associated with higher negative affect irrespective of child BMI status.

Conclusions

These associations highlight the potential mental health benefits of maintaining positive affect, engaging in PA and limiting leisure screen time for children during the pandemic and suggest that these associations may be particularly relevant for children with overweight/obesity.

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  1. Version published to 10.1111/ijpo.12786
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.10.20.20216424: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Therefore, an amendment to the original Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocol was sent to the IRBs at the University of Southern California (#HS-15-00540) and KPSC (#10282) for virtual follow-up visits.
    Consent: During the prior in-person follow-up visit, participants’ parents gave written informed consent, and children provided written informed assent to participate in longitudinal studies.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    SAS 9.4 statistical software (SAS Institute, Cary, NC USA) was used for all data analyses.
    SAS Institute
    suggested: (Statistical Analysis System, RRID:SCR_008567)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.10.20.20216424v1 on medRxiv