Belcastro, AngeloMoghaddaszadeh, Asal2023-03-282023-03-282021-11-012023-03-28http://hdl.handle.net/10315/40950It is well established that the decline in children’s physical activity (PA) participation contributes to increases in the prevalence of paediatric obesity, risks for developing cardiovascular disease and decreases in physical fitness. PA interventions that are regimented and conducted in structured environments, such as laboratories, hospitals and school-based curricula, have shown to improve healthy PA behaviours and health- related fitness (i.e., health-enhancing PA). The increased costs and labour intensiveness of these programs have raised questions about their attractiveness in recreational/community summer camps and/or after-school settings. The importance of community-based programming where play (i.e., free play [FP], active play [AP], guided active play [GAP]) may provide increased opportunities for children to be active and facilitate social interactions should not be overlooked when considering children’s PA participation. Previous studies have shown that in a simulated AP environment using cooperative games, children elicit a wide range of energy expenditures and percentage of time spent in moderate-to-vigorous PA (%MVPA). The overarching purpose of this dissertation was to use cooperative games in community summer camp programs for school-aged children to determine if select health PA behaviour outcomes (energy expenditure, intensity) and health-related fitness (blood pressure, aerobic fitness, body composition) improvements are associated with long-term GAP programs. The major findings are that: 1) energy expenditure (EE) and %MVPA associated with children’s GAP using cooperative games over an 8-week community summer camp are maintained and sufficient to improve blood pressure and estimated maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max; Ch. 3.2); 2) following a shorter (5-wk) GAP program, school-aged children showed statistically higher forearm vascular perfusion controlled by endothelial independent processes that preceded changes in estimated VO2max (Ch. 3.3); and 3) during development, PA tracking over 1 year intervals were moderately high when assessed by GAP and using cooperative games (Ch. 3.1). In conclusion, cooperative games within a longer-term community summer camp GAP program are effective in sustaining health-enhancing PA and improving school-aged children’s health and fitness. PA participation over a one-year period for GAP using cooperative games is stable in children 5-12 years. A community camp that includes GAP programming with cooperative games seems to be an effective strategy to engage children in health-enhancing PA during time away from school (i.e., afterschool, weekends, summer).Author owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.PhysiologyHealth sciencesKinesiologyElectronic Thesis or Dissertation2023-03-28Children's physical activityGuided active playCommunity programmingTrackingVascular functionPhysical activity interventionExercise physiology