Less homework, less gaming, more playing: Chinese laws yield success in war on sitting

(CN) — Children around the world spend more time sitting and less time taking part in physical activities. It’s a hard trend to combat. But a study from the University of Bristol released Monday indicates China’s efforts to limit homework and online gaming have shown promise.

“The results are exciting as this type of regulatory intervention across multiple settings has never been tried before," said the University of Bristol’s Bai Li, lead author of the study, in a statement accompanying the study.

In 2021, China introduced two new regulations. First, it banned citizens under the age of 18 from playing online games on weekdays and limited play to three hours on weekends. Then, it passed a law limiting how much homework teachers could assign, and what times of day tutoring businesses were allowed to give lessons.

The researchers analyzed surveillance data from 7,000 schoolchildren from 31 rural and urban areas in southern China. They compared behaviors before and after the regulations were passed and found the children’s sedentary behavior dropped 13.8% — about 46 minutes per day.

These regulations are a major departure from how governments typically try to combat physical inactivity.

“Traditionally, children and their parents or carers have been guided with education and encouraged to make behavioral changes themselves, which hasn’t really worked,” Li said. “With these regulatory measures, the onus has shifted to online gaming companies, schools, and private tutoring companies to comply. This very different approach appears to be more effective, because it is aimed at improving the environment in which children and adolescents live, supporting a healthier lifestyle.”

China recommends that primary school children spend less than 60 minutes per day on homework, and secondary school children only spend 90 minutes per day. After the regulations were passed, students were almost three times as likely to meet these guidelines.

In addition, children who took part in the study had 10 minutes less screen time per day, on average. They were also 20% more likely to meet guidelines set by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which state that children should have less than 2 hours of screen time each day.

Oddly, this did not mean the children spent less time on mobile phones, consoles and tablets. Rather, the decrease was primarily seen in TV and computer use.

According to the study, these results fall in line with more general findings that changing environmental factors is far more effective than individual-focused interventions.

“This is a fascinating study because most interventions to reduce sedentary behaviors have relied on educational approaches rather than the regulatory measures used here," said Boyd Swinburn, co-director of the World Health Organization. “While achieving similar regulations in countries outside China may be a challenge, the impact of the regulations does show how sensitive sedentary behaviors are to the prevailing environmental conditions and rules.”