**Abstract**

As children and adolescents who are identified as sedentary or physically inactive fall below the established world-wide physical activity guidelines for daily levels of physical activities, there is a need to examine factors that will influence the formation and change of sedentary behavior. This chapter is an analytical identification and appraisal of recent research and alternative approaches toward changing sedentary and inactive behavior and is founded on two premises: the first is that underlying concepts-related sedentary behavior are discussed and understood and the second is that effective and successful methodological interventions identified in four recent systematic reviews of 310 studies involving over a million children and adolescents that focused on a plethora of health, physical activity, and other related parameters leave clues that generate cues aimed at reducing sedentary and increasing physical activity behaviors. In this chapter, clues and cues related to conceptual and methodological factors, intervention development and evaluation, and alternative approaches with the aim of increasing the physical activity and healthy lifestyle behaviors and decreasing sedentary behaviors of children and adolescents are examined.

**Keywords:** attitudes, inactivity, low effort involvement physical activity, low-moderate-vigorous physical activity, obesity

### **1. Introduction**

World-wide physical activity guidelines generally require all ages to achieve daily or weekly physical activity levels that involve time and effort parameters. In children and adolescents, the expectation, for example, in the United States is over 60 minutes per day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and/or musclestrengthening activities [1] with anything less seen as a risk of pervasive health

implications that, if allowed, will continue into adulthood. Understanding the broader concept of activities of daily living (ADL) is fundamental to understanding sedentary and inactive behaviors. Assuming that if children and adolescents get a good night's sleep which is recommended from 9 to 12 hours [2], then there is plenty of time awake in the rest of the day for ADL. Within the awake hours, ADL can be seen either as required such as school, work, and homework, or as choice-based such as chores, resting, recreation, physical activities (PAs), and other active behaviors. Identifying children and adolescents who could be considered as sedentary or inactive has been examined in both the required and choice-based contexts. In school populations, there are difficulties during the school day as there are bouts of active (such as recess) and inactive (such as sitting at a desk studying) behaviors which can obscure or compound sedentary and inactive behaviors. After school, at weekends, and during vacations where choices abound, there is no doubt that sedentary and inactive behaviors have increased and were even enforced during the COVID-19 lockdowns and have not necessarily changed since. Increasingly, for many children and adolescents, the easiest choice is to reach for their electronic device such as a smartphone. A potentially healthier but more complicated active choice would be to arrange and complete any form, intensity, and length of PA. The complications that arise can be seen either as internal which includes the role and energy of gatekeepers such as parents who often see barriers rather than facilitating choices [3] or as external which includes seasonal climate and weather, availability and/or distance to recreational facilities, and cost of programs and equipment. As a result, it is often easier to stay at home on an electronic device which leads to less physical activity or inactivity (IA) and more sedentary behavior (SB). With such a variety of required and choice-based ADL and internal and external facilitators/barriers being able to discern who is sedentary or inactive and how to change their behaviors is complicated, this has not stopped a plethora of researchers from various fields, such as health, PA, behavioral, and exercise sciences from trying to ameliorate changes in behavioral decreases in levels of IA and SB and/or increases in PA. Prior to examining how researchers have attempted to ameliorate change, it is necessary for underlying concept-related SB to be discussed and understood, and this premise provides the focus of the next section.
