Welcome to our research community! Each month, our Research Ambassadors dive into a new and exciting research article, sharing their insights, reflecting and discussing together in our WhatsApp community. This is a space for learning, asking questions, and exploring research in and informal and supportive way. This blog post summarises the key takeaways from our latest journal club discussion.
This month’s featured article:
This month, Research Officer Beth shared an article titled ‘Children’s activity and diet behaviours in the summer holidays versus school year’.
This article explored how children’s activity levels and diet behaviours change from during the summer holidays to the school year. It used a within-subjects design, meaning that the same children were used to assess diet and activity during the school year, and during the summer holidays. They used different methods including surveys, accelerometers and parents reported behaviours to find out what children’s activity levels and diets were like.
The study found that:
- Children spent less time doing physical activity and more time doing sedentary activities during the summer holidays versus the school year.
- They also had higher screen time during the summer holidays.
- Children’s diet quality was lower during the summer holidays, with many consuming less serves of fruit compared to the school year.
If you would like to read this month’s report, please visit this link.
Key discussion points:
To start this month’s discussion, Beth posed several questions for the rest of our journal club to think about when reading the report:
- Were there any terms that you learnt or did not understand?
- What were your thoughts on the methodology used, do you think this accurately captured physical activity and nutritional behaviours?
- Do you think there are any other methods that could be used that may have been more appropriate?
- What do you think the results would look like if this research was conducted in the UK?
- How do you think this could be ‘tackled’, what do you think could be done/implemented to increase young people’s engagement in physical activity over the summer holidays?
For this month, we introduced a new way for ambassadors to engage in discussion about the article. We hosted a group call at the end of the month for ambassadors to share their insights and discuss the article in real time. Some of the common themes from our discussions are outlined below:
- Understanding statistics: ambassadors shared that some of the statistics and methods used within the article were confusing to understand.
- Context of the broader culture: ambassadors reflected on the wider factors such as parent attitudes, lifestyle, socioeconomic status and education that may contribute to diet and activity levels. This was not acknowledged in the article and ambassadors shared that further research into this would be interesting.
- The methods used: we also discussed the use of parent reported behaviours/diet and how this may lead to bias or inaccurate findings.
Ambassador insights:
Some ambassadors also shared their reflections in our WhatsApp community:
“Thank you for sharing this article. I found this article useful because it highlights how the loss of school structure during summer holidays can negatively affect children’s health behaviours.
A strength of the study is within-child design, as the same children were compared during school time and holidays. This makes the findings stronger than simply comparing two different groups of children. The use of accelerometers also improved the reliability of physical activity measurement.
If conducted in the UK, I think similar patterns may be seen, especially among families facing financial barriers, limited childcare, or reduced access to safe outdoor spaces. Local authorities, schools and community organisations could respond by offering free or low-cost holiday programmes that include physical activity, healthy eating and social connection” – Ivy
“New terms I learnt:
- Obesogenic behaviours: behaviours promoting excessive weight gain.
- Between-subjects design: tests different conditions / variable levels on separate groups of people.
- Within-subjects design: same group of people exposed to all variable levels / conditions.
My thoughts on the method:
- MARCA – There may be an element of memory / recall bias in asking children to recall what types of activity they did in the previous 2 days. Perhaps it would have been useful to ask children (or their parents/carers) to log the type, length & intensity of physical activity in an activity book / log.
- ASA24 – Getting parents to report what their child ate over the last 24 hours may be subject to social desirability bias. Parents/carers may want to portray ‘good’ parenting, and this might affect how honestly they report on their child’s diet.
In the UK, I think the government should continue evaluate and invest in the Holiday Activities & Food programme and/or similar free initiatives” – Molly
“Thank you for sharing this article. I found it really interesting, especially from a public health perspective.
I found the Structured Days Hypothesis useful, as it explains how school days provide routine and structure, while holidays may lead to less healthy behaviours because that structure is reduced.
I think other methods could also have been useful, such as food diaries, interviews, or focus groups with children and parents. This could help explain why behaviours change during the holidays, for example because of boredom, cost of activities, weather, lack of childcare, or limited access to safe outdoor spaces.
If this research was conducted in the UK, I think some results may be similar, such as increased screen time and reduced structure during school holidays. However, the UK weather, income differences, access to parks, holiday clubs, and family support could affect the results. I think inequalities would be an important factor, as not all families can afford structured holiday activities or healthy food options” – Vijitha
Valuing our journal club
Our group call this month was a great way to discuss the article together, we were able to question the methods, bring personal insights and reflect on the findings. We also shared ideas for further research and practical solutions to some of the study’s results.
The Journal Club is open to all our Research Ambassadors, it is a space for curiosity, sharing knowledge, and asking questions to build our confidence reading academic articles. You do not need to have experience in reading articles, just an interest in hearing about new topics!
Our Research Ambassador Network is currently closed to new members, but you can find out more about our research opportunities in our Research Network Newsletter. You can sign up to the newsletter by emailing our Research Officer Joe: