Table 1

Relationships between the physical home environment and children's outdoor playtime for the previous day (n = 276) (ANOVA used for categorical variables and Pearson correlation for continuous variables).

Descriptive Construct
Physical Home Environment Item
Children's Physical Activity Mean outdoor playtime score (range = 0–18)
p value



≥ Once a week
Fortnightly to monthly
Couple of times a year
Nil in last 12 months

Role modelling
Mother's frequency of walking >30 mins per day
8.8a
7.3ab
8.2ab
6.0b
0.008

Mother's frequency of organised sport
9.0a
8.9ab
8.5ab
7.5b
0.04

Father's frequency of walking >30 mins per day
8.7ab
7.8ab
9.5a
7.2b
0.03









Very much
Quite a bit
Not very much
Not at all

Physical attributes of the home
Presence of labour saving devices
8.3ab
8.1ab
9.1a
7.1b
0.04

Size of backyard
291 ± 358.3 (0–3000) m2 [r = 0.20c]
0.001

Number of items of outdoor play equipment
11 ± 3.15 (2–19) items of equipment [r = 0.17c]
0.003

a,bSuperscripts indicate which categories show a statistically significant difference using Bonferroni correction: same letter indicates no difference, different letter indicates a difference.

cPearson correlation coefficient

Spurrier et al. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity 2008 5:31   doi:10.1186/1479-5868-5-31