Associations between meeting the Canadian 24-hour movement guidelines and physical, cognitive, social-emotional, and overall development in early childhood.

Background: The importance of all movement behaviours (i.e., sleep, sedentary behaviour, and physical activity) for children's health has led to the creation of national and international 24-h movement behaviour guidelines for children. Few studies have examined the associations between guideline adherence and a broad array of health indicators in early childhood, and no study has done so with composite development scores for overall development. The objective of the present study was to examine associations for 24-h movement guideline adherence with physical, cognitive, social-emotional, and overall development indicators in a sample of 3-5-year-olds.

Methods: Children (n = 95) were recruited for this cross-sectional study in Edmonton, Canada. Sleep, light-intensity physical activity, and moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity were measured with ActiGraph wGT3X-BT accelerometers. Screen time was measured via parental-report. Guideline recommendation adherence was categorized using the Canadian 24-h Movement Guidelines. Composite z-scores were created for physical (i.e., adiposity, growth, motor skills), cognitive (i.e., vocabulary, executive functions), social-emotional (i.e., self-regulation, social-emotional behaviours), and overall development. Linear regression models were conducted to examine associations between meeting different recommendation combinations (e.g., physical activity alone, combination of physical activity and sleep), and number of recommendations met (e.g., meeting only one of any of the recommendations) with each composite development outcome variable adjusted for relevant covariates.

Results: Most children were 3-4 years old (77%) and males (69%). The physical activity guideline recommendation was the most frequently met single recommendation (94%), while the physical activity and sleep recommendations (80%) were the most frequently met combination of two recommendations. Further, 43% of children met all three recommendations. Meeting the sleep recommendation was positively associated with overall development (B: 0.29; 95% CI: 0.08-0.50), while meeting both the sleep and physical activity recommendations was positively associated with overall (B: 0.28; 95% CI: 0.10-0.46) and physical (B: 0.27; 95% CI: 0.03-0.51) development.

Conclusions: Meeting sleep recommendations alone, as well as the combination of sleep and physical activity recommendations were associated with better physical and overall development in this sample. Future research should continue to examine a broad array of development outcomes using longitudinal study designs across early childhood.