The Effect of Demographic and Lifestyle Factors on Mode of Travel in School-Aged Children in The UK: A cross-Sectional Study From Understanding Society

Increasing levels of physical inactivity is associated with growing trends of childhood obesity.

We aim to study the effect of socio-demographic as well as lifestyle factors on mode of travel to and from school in children from 10 to 15-year-old.

4,497 school-aged children from the first wave of Understanding Society database. A cross-sectional design was used to examine the relationship between active travel with demographic and lifestyle factors.

Multivariate analyses show that children ages 13 to 15 years were more likely to travel actively compared to younger peers (OR=1.92,95%CI:1.65-2.23). Those engaged in sporting activity 3 times or greater than per week were more likely to actively travel compared to those engaged in less than twice per week (OR = 1.21, 95% CI: 1.02 to 1.43) and those eating fast food once or less than per week were more likely to travel actively compared to unhealthy eaters.

Sports activity 3 times or greater than per week and eating fast food once or less than per week are positively associated with children being active travellers.