Parental perception and guideline awareness of children’s lifestyle behaviours at ages 5 to 14 in Singapore

ABSTRACT Introduction: There are limited data on the descriptive lifestyle behaviour of school-age children in Singapore. Methods: A total 100 parents ages 5 to 14 participated a parents’ proxy-reported survey. Frequency moderate physical activity (PA) and vigorous PA was assessed, while t-tests or chi-square test used examine differences between weekdays weekends for sleep, screen viewing time (SVT) sedentary (SB). Results: Of (68% Chinese ethnicity, 59% boys, mean age 9.1±2.9 years), 31% were overweight obese, with body mass index z-score >1. For participation typical week, 32.0% 43.0%, respectively, did not participate, median (interquartile range) days 3 (2–3) days/week 2 (1–3) duration 60 range 30–120) minutes/session. When comparing weekdays, means (standard deviation) both SVT sleep higher (SVT: 4.1 [2.9] versus 3.3 [3.1] hours/day, P=0.07; sleep: 8.8 [1.5] vs 8.3 [1.3] P=0.02), there no significant SB. proportion had SB ≥10 hours/day slept <8 compared (SB: 23.5% 20.6%, P>0.05; sleep:18.8% 2.1%, P<0.05), exceeding than (63.8% 45.4%, P=0.03). Overall, parental awareness guidelines (80.0%), but lower (51.0%) (59.0%) guidelines. Conclusion: Lifestyle behaviours suboptimal Singapore existing overseas guidelines, indicating need an integrated guideline greater dissemination. Keywords: Childhood adolescents, guideline, behaviours, activity, time,