Painted Playgrounds: Aim 2: Assessments

Painted Playgrounds: A Scalable Approach to Increasing Physical Activity and Motor Skills in Louisiana Preschool Aged Children. Aim 2: Assessments

The Painted Playgrounds Aim 2 (Assessment) project will examine the effects of a stenciling intervention aimed at increasing physical activity and improving fundamental motor skill functioning of preschool aged children. 72 children from local licensed childcare centers will participate in individual assessments at baseline and follow-up 6-8 weeks later. Assessments include height/weight, surveys and wearing a physical activity monitor (accelerometer) for 7 days. A parent/legal guardian will provide consent for their child to participate and will also complete a brief survey about their child's lifestyle and habits.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Childhood Obesity
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Playground Stencils

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 51
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Louisiana
    • Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States, 70808
      • Pennington Biomedical Research Center

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 3 years to 6 years (Child)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• A child who attends a childcare center enrolled to Aim 1.
• A child who is ≥ 3 years and ≤ 6 years old
• Your child will continue to attend this same childcare center for the duration of the study.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Parent/legal guardian is unwilling to provide written informed consent

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Active Comparator: Intervention; Participants attending the childcare centers randomized to this arm will receive the stencil activities after baseline assessments have been completed. We will follow-up with assessments after 6-8 weeks	Other: Playground Stencils; The stencils (hopscotch, agility trail, foursquare, bullseye, etc.) will be painted on the playgrounds at each childcare center. A toolkit and training video will be distributed to staff at each center to aid in instructing the children on how to perform the tasks.
Placebo Comparator: Wait-List; Participants attending the childcare centers randomized to this arm will receive the stencil activities approximately 8 weeks after enrolling, after baseline and follow-up assessments have been completed.	Other: Playground Stencils; The stencils (hopscotch, agility trail, foursquare, bullseye, etc.) will be painted on the playgrounds at each childcare center. A toolkit and training video will be distributed to staff at each center to aid in instructing the children on how to perform the tasks.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Moderate to Vigorous Activity (MVPA) During Recess	To test the effectiveness of a promising (cost-effective, easily scalable) playground stenciling intervention to increase physical activity, change in MVPA during recess will be measured using accelerometers. The main outcome variable will be percentage of recess time spent in MVPA, measured objectively using a physical activity monitor (i.e. accelerometer).	Baseline and follow-up (6 to 8 weeks after playground stenciling)
Change in Fundamental Motor Skill Development	The Test of Gross Motor Development, 3rd edition (TGMD-3) was utilized to assess fundamental motor skills. The test consists of a total of 13 skills which are designed to assess locomotor (6 skills) and ball (7 skills). Children complete two trials, and if they meet the specified performance criteria, they are scored a 1. If they fail to meet the criteria, they are scored a zero. Trials 1 and 2 are added to get the raw scores of locomotor and ball skill. For locomotor, this range is from 0-46; for ball skills, children can score from 0-54. Raw scores are then converted to scaled scores based on the TGMD-3 age and gender charts. The scaled scores are added to determine a total scaled score. The total scaled score has a percentile ranking to determine what percentile the child is in (<1,>99). The post-TGMD-3 total percentile was subtracted for the change score from the baseline percentile. A positive value indicates an improvement in fundamental motor skills, where	Baseline and follow-up (6 to 8 weeks after playground stenciling)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in fundamental motor skill development	To test the effectiveness of a promising (cost-effective, easily scalable) playground stenciling intervention to change fundamental motor skills, Tests of Gross Motor Development (TGMDs) will be performed at baseline and follow-up.	Baseline and follow-up (6 to 8 weeks after playground stenciling)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Pennington Biomedical Research Center
• Collaborators: Blue Cross Blue Shield
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Maura Kepper, PhD, Pennington Biomedical Research Center

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Webster EK, Kepper MM, Saha S, Beyl RA, Kracht CL, Romain JS, Staiano AE. Painted playgrounds for preschoolers' physical activity and fundamental motor skill improvement: a randomized controlled pilot trial of effectiveness. BMC Pediatr. 2023 Sep 9;23(1):455. doi: 10.1186/s12887-023-04260-2.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): December 15, 2018
• Primary Completion (Actual): June 30, 2019
• Study Completion (Actual): June 30, 2019

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: January 29, 2019
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 19, 2019
• First Posted (Actual): March 21, 2019

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 25, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 5, 2024
• Last Verified: November 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Nutrition Disorders; Overnutrition; Body Weight; Overweight; Obesity; Pediatric Obesity
• Other Study ID Numbers: PBRC 2017-040

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No