Browsing by Subject "habit formation"

Introduction. Sedentary behaviour, i.e. sitting or reclining without being otherwise physically active, has been associated with serious health consequences, independent of moderate to vigorous physical activity. Schooldays include long periods of uninterrupted sitting and schools have been recognized as a promising setting for health promotion interventions. Let’s Move It intervention was developed to reduce vocational school students’ sedentary time. As teachers have large potential to regulate students’ sedentary time in classrooms, they were trained by Let’s Move It facilitators in three 90 minute workshops to 1) decrease their students’ total sedentary time and to 2) introduce breaks to sedentary time in classrooms by using active teaching methods and activity breaks.Teacher training also included habit formation components to create sustained habitual behaviours in providing sedentary behaviour reduction for students. This study evaluates the effectiveness of the Let’s Move It teacher training, teachers’ engagement with the habit formation components, and the habit formation processes. Methods. A cluster randomised controlled trial with one intervention arm (Let’s Move It workshops for teachers) compared with a control arm (no treatment) was conducted in six school units. Altogether 236 eligible teachers were identified, of whom 118 were allocated to intervention arm and 116 to control arm. In the intervention arm, 64 teachers received the intervention. Baseline and 8-week follow-up data was collected with online questionnaires. Results. The Let’s Move It workshops for vocational school teachers were effective in increasing teachers’ reported use of classrooms sitting reductions strategies and frequency of introducing breaks to students’ sitting, but not frequency of reducing students’ total sitting time. Only 15.5 % of intervention arm teachers used habit formation techniques frequently. However, the habit formation techniques the teachers reported having used were mostly optimal for habit formation. Use of habit formation techniques was not correlated with sitting reduction automaticity. However, use of habit formation techniques was positively correlated with both use of sitting reduction strategies and frequency of reducing students’ total sedentary time. Discussion. The Let’s Move It intervention was successful in increasing vocational school teachers’ use of classroom sitting reduction strategies. Even though this study could not indicate habit formation techniques’ effectiveness in making teachers’ classroom sitting reduction practices habitual, it indicated that habit formation has potential to aid teachers’ behaviour change in this context. Further research is needed to establish acceptability, feasibility and effectiveness of habit formation in teachers’ classroom sitting reduction training.