Meeting the WHO 24-h guidelines among 2–6-year-old children by family socioeconomic status before and during the COVID-19 pandemic : a repeated cross-sectional study

Background The World Health Organization (WHO) has developed guidelines for 24-h physical activity (PA), sedentary behaviour and sleep for young children. Lower socioeconomic status (SES) has been linked to a lower likelihood of meeting these guidelines. The outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) raised concerns about young children’s opportunities to meet the guidelines. The study focused on the prevalence of meeting the WHO’s 24-h guidelines on screen time (ST), PA and sleep among 2–6-year-old children, in association with family SES, before COVID-19 outbreak in 2019, and during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 in Finland. Methods Data were collected at three timepoints by an o…