Critical environmental factors promoting physical activity in children, adolescents, adults and elderly people: an experimental perspective.

The purpose of this project is to investigate the relationship between environmental variables and objectively measured physical activity. In a first study subjects will be provided with a digital camera and asked to take pictures of their environment every hour during leisure-time for one week and to wear an accelerometer during the same week. In this study we want to get a visual image of locations where people spend their leisure-time and are physically active and to investigate whether there is a relationship between objectively measured physical activity and certain characteristics of the pictured environments by linking the digitalised pictures with hourly patterns of physical activity assessed by accelerometry. in a second study, a laboratory experiment critical environmental factors (as determined in study 2) will be tested in varying weather and social conditions. In a third laboratory experiment video fragments will be shown of environments where people can do physical as well as sedentary activities. In this study we want to investigate which personal and psychosocial factors determine the choice for an active or sedentary activity in the same environment in different age groups and to investigate which environmental characteristics are more inviting to do active versus sedentary pursuits.