Running head: NEIGHBORHOOD CONTEXT AND YOUTH PA 1
Neighborhood Context and Youth Activity
Tiara Weston
NURS 367
Neighborhood Context and Youth PA
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The purpose of ?Neighborhood Context and Youth Physical Activity: Differential
Associations by Gender and Age ? was to observe the extent to which the aspect of neighborhood
race, age, ethnicity and race influences individual physical activity (PA) among the youth aged 6
to 17. There are many benefits that you can get from PA and one of the big ones is obesity
prevention. Based on the Department of Sociology in the University of Utah, “physical activity
declines dramatically across age groups between childhood and adolescence.” The example of
this was that 42% of children between the ages 6 and 11 obtain 60 minutes of PA which is what
is recommended, however only 8% of adolescence achieve this goal.
Cervero R. and Kockelman K. spoke about the 3-D’s which are three important
dimensions that designers consider when creating neighborhoods. The first one is populations
density which is the critical number of residents who may encourage the development of the
design and that would lead to more chances of PA. The second dimension is pedestrian-friendly
design which has the benefit of having slower traffic due to the amount of stop signs it would
have, and that would also promote more youth PA. The final one is diversity of destination, and
in the article it said “older neighborhoods were designed with pedestrians in mind whereas newer
neighborhoods are likely to be designed to support car use.” (427) There were some designs that
promoted young children PA more than older youth such as cul-de-sacs aka dead ends.
In the article it also talked about gender and mentioned how parents most likely place
fewer restrictions on their sons compared to their daughters due to the safety risks in their
Neighborhood Context and Youth PA
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neighborhood. This showed that gender had a role in the amount of PA between youth females
and males.
References
Kowaleski-Jones, L., Fan, J. X., Wen, M., ; Hanson H. (2017). Neighborhood Context and
Youth Physical Activity: Differential Associations by Gender and Age. ?American
Journal of Health Promotion, 31(5) ?, 426-434
