Elsevier

Preventive Medicine

Volume 67, October 2014, Pages 221-237
Preventive Medicine

Review
The home physical environment and its relationship with physical activity and sedentary behavior: A systematic review

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2014.07.026Get rights and content

Highlights

  • 49 studies (20 experimental and 29 observational design) met eligibility criteria.

  • TV limiting devices were effective for children but results were limited for adults.

  • Large exercise equipment was effective in facilitating physical activity in adults.

  • Quantity of exercise equipment correlated with behavior for females.

  • Quantity of televisions showed stronger correlation with behavior for girls.

Abstract

Reviews of neighborhood (macro) environment characteristics such as the presence of sidewalks and esthetics have shown significant correlations with resident physical activity (PA) and sedentary (SD) behavior. Currently, no comprehensive review has appraised and collected available evidence on the home (micro) physical environment. The purpose of this review was to examine how the home physical environment relates to adult and child PA and SD behaviors. Articles were searched during May 2014 using Medline, PsycINFO, PubMed, Scopus, and SPORTDiscus databases which yielded 3265 potential studies. Papers were considered eligible if they investigated the presence of PA (ie. exercise equipment, exergaming devices) or SD (ie. television, videogames) equipment and PA or SD behavior. After, screening and manual cross-referencing, 49 studies (20 experimental and 29 observational designs) were found to meet the eligibility criteria. Interventions that reduced sedentary time by using TV limiting devices were shown to be effective for children but the results were limited for adults. Overall, large exercise equipment (ie. treadmills), and prominent exergaming materials (exergaming bike, dance mats) were found to be more effective than smaller devices. Observational studies revealed that location and quantity of televisions correlated with SD behavior with the latter having a greater effect on girls. This was similarly found for the quantity of PA equipment which also correlated with behavior in females. Given the large market for exercise equipment, videos and exergaming, the limited work performed on its effectiveness in homes is alarming. Future research should focus on developing stronger randomized controlled trials, investigate the location of PA equipment, and examine mediators of the gender discrepancy found in contemporary studies.

Section snippets

Context

Regular physical activity has been associated with the prevention of at least 25 chronic diseases (Warburton et al., 2007). Despite these findings, physical activity (PA) remains low and consequently obesity and the comorbidities associated with low PA levels have increased (Shields et al., 2010, Tremblay et al., 2010). Researchers have identified several correlates of PA behavior which can be broadly defined into categories of: demographic, biological, intra-individual/psychological,

Eligibility criteria

Studies that were published in English peer-reviewed journals were considered for this review. The journal articles were considered eligible if they investigated: i) the presence of PA (e.g. treadmill) or SD (e.g. television) equipment, and ii) an outcome of PA or SD behavior.

Exclusion criteria

Studies were excluded if the setting was other than a family home (ie. nursing homes, schools, and recreation facilities); the authors wanted to examine a setting in which the individuals have the autonomy to manipulate

Evidence synthesis

The primary author and a research assistant performed two independent literature searches. The initial search yielded 3265 potentially relevant articles. After duplicates were removed (1187 articles), the remaining articles were filtered from the title and abstract by removing studies that did not fit the inclusion criteria such as non-home environment, or intervention which did not include correlates of physical home environment. This shortened the list to 96 articles to further evaluate. The

Quantity of SD equipment and SD time

Ten studies investigated the correlation between the quantity of media resources and total TV viewing/sedentary time (Adachi-Mejia et al., 2007, Barr-Anderson et al., 2008, Bauer et al., 2011, Dennison et al., 2002, Gorin et al., 2011, Hoyos Cillero and Jago, 2011, Roemmich et al., 2007, Salmon et al., 2013, Sirard et al., 2010, Van Zutphen et al., 2007). Of these, two conducted analysis with children (Bauer et al., 2011, Van Zutphen et al., 2007) and six conducted gender analysis (Adachi-Mejia

Discussion

The home environment can provide ease of access to a variety of equipment which could prompt both PA and SD activities. More importantly, we have the autonomy to modify the equipment in our homes and can essentially shape our own PA and SD behaviors. Hence, understanding how the characteristics of physical equipment in our homes predict our behaviors could provide insight on conducting pragmatic interventions. The purpose of the present review was to summarize and appraise the literature on how

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest in the research.

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for providing insightful and valuable suggestions to improve this paper. We would also like to thank Alison Quinlan for assisting us with the literature search. No funding was received for this systematic review. R.E. Rhodes is supported by a Canadian Cancer Society Senior Scientist Award and through funds from the Give to Live Foundation, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Cancer Society, and the Canadian

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      Citation Excerpt :

      Eleven reviews examined the association between home equipment/environment and PA. One was high quality (Lambert et al., 2019), one moderate (Prince et al., 2019), two low (Kaushal and Rhodes, 2014; Maitland et al., 2013), and seven critically low (Davison and Lawson, 2006; Ferreira et al., 2007; Lawman and Wilson, 2012; Marzi et al., 2018; Masoumi, 2017; Utley et al., 2016; Van Der Van Der Horst et al., 2007). Among children, there was very low certainty for no association between the home environment or equipment in the home and total PA.

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