Proximity Sports as a Sustainable Strategy for the Promotion of Physical Activity at an Early Age: The KIA Project
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This interesting qualitative study examined the KIA project which took place in primary school children in a city in Spain. This study highlights the importance of providing a variety of sports to young children within a short distance of their homes. Other stakeholders such as parents also give their views. However, there some issues which need to be addressed:
Title
Line 2: I am assuming you mean “sustainable” rather than “sostensible”?
Abstract
Line 18: I would use alternative wording to “most outstanding”. For example, the “The main results included the importance of introducing sport…”
Line 22: Feels like there is some wording missing around “availability”? Availability of what exactly, equipment, staff, infrastructure?
Introduction
Line 27-29: Need to include a reference for these specific figures.
Line 38: Use “take” instead of “took”.
Line 38-42: Again, you need to include a reference for these specific figures as it is not clear where you are getting them from.
Line 90-91: It feels like something is missing from this sentence / it has not been completed?
Lines 98-100: Again, the structuring is a little off (i.e. not sure if two sentences are needed).
Lines 139-146: I appreciate these are the aims of the project, but what is the aim of this specific study?
Line 158: What does the gift kit contain?
Methods
Lines 171: Replace “the different actors participating from in the…” with “the different stakeholders participating in the…”
Line 175: No other criteria like minimal participation in at least one or two of the sports? Also clarify any age-based inclusion criteria.
Line 190: Was this sample size based off of any other related research? Is it enough to reach data saturation?
Lines 193-194: Need a gap between the short paragraph and the Table.
Lines 198-204: What kinds of questions were asked and how many were there?
Lines 212-213: Was there no recording made of the interviews? Important information could have been missed even with another researcher sitting in the room.
Results
Line 247: Was there not any other demographic information collected on the children (e.g. BMI, socioeconomic status determined by the school / area they live in etc.)?
Lines 250-252: Why are these lines in bold?
Line 255: Use the full term (i.e. Ultimate Frisbee).
Lines 258-262: Could Chi-Square statistical testing not be applied here regarding the comparison between girls and boys?
Line 268: I feel fuller quotes could be used in the earlier part of this section to give added context.
Line 305: Make sure the FE abbreviation has been fully expanded here or at some point earlier.
Lines 383-395: Expand on some of these points a little bit as it is sometimes unclear what point is trying to be made.
Lines 439-463: Same as my previous query.
Lines 514-516: I feel there needs to be a little bit of expansion of exactly what each word is representing / meaning (i.e. some themes could be described in 4-6 words). Also, why not give quotes to give some context to these 10 specific themes.
Figure 4: Properly label the y-axis.
Discussion
Lines 572-575: What could be some the challenges in implementing something like this? Please expand further.
Line 597: Obviously the qualitative study design is also a limitation as you are unable to establish cause-and-effect (i.e. do children taking part in the KIA project actually become healthier?). In addition, your satisfaction measures were not validated / you did not use other validated questionnaires to establish any positive changes by taking part in the project (e.g. wellbeing).
Line 602: Don’t use “significant” in this way, replace it with an equivalent word.
There are a few instances of typos and sentences not fully making sense. I feel you need an English-speaker to give this manuscript a full read in order to make sure all of your points are coming clearly across.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions, which we tried to reply to in the attached document.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Kind Regards
The authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The objective of this paper was to investigate the degree of success of this pilot experience in order to identify good practices in the promotion of physical activity at an early age. This study brings new knowledge regarding physical activity outside school for infants and primary education students. While I believe that this is indeed an intriguing study, I feel that some further refinements would help to strengthen your paper. I list them below.
Introduction
Some ideas are repeated during the introduction, and it results on a long a not efficient introduction. Could you condense some ideas to make it easier for the readers?
Could you please eliminate the subtitle 1.1?
Many sport activities are presented in the introduction. According to the authors, participants where between 3 and 11 years old. How can a 3-year-old kid participate in sports as BMX, parkour, rugby, voleyball, climbing, Ultimate Frisbee or canoeing?
Methods
I feel confuse about table 1. How can be the average age of the boy of the 6th school 7,3 ±1.2 if there is only one participant?
Please, could you include in the manuscript the number of reference of the ethics committee?
The first instrument authors use, the graphical rating survey, is it validated? If it is validated for using with children include the reference in the manuscript.
I appreciate that authors include figures showing how the passport used in the research was.
Results
Correct the word “volleyball”.
Authors explain that “The activity that the participants were most indifferent to was ultimate, with 33.33%, followed by psychomotricity and gymnastic abilities, with 21.4% and 16.6% respectively. None of the activities carried out was rated negatively by the participants.”, but this data do not correspond to the one that appears in Figure 3.
Correct the title of figure 3.
Could you provide the satisfaction with the activities results according to age? Why did you decide not to include this aspect in the final manuscript?
Consider not to cut that many words, like phys-ical education (273 line)
On lines 301-334, could you write instead of putting on list form?
From line 335, I believe that the information provided is very valuable. Even though, the way of writing (full of numbers, points, indentation and cursive) is not the most comfortable for the readers.
Discussion
The discussion section contains a lot of information and is well organized.
“Percy-Smith showed that stress is a widespread problem for young people and it is important to address it” (Line 553-554). Include the year of the reference.
References
References are appropriate. Even though, DOI is included just in some references. Try to include in the most as possible.
Figures and tables
Could you give another more visually attractive and more formal format to the figures? Especially some figures, as Figure 4 or 5, look so basic and not that professional as to be published on a scientistic journal.
On table 1 correct the word “manger”.
Correct some minor mistakes.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions, which we tried to reply to in the attached document.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Kind Regards
The authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
It can be classified according to age category. İt is not necessary to give the number of subject according to school.Because the participents from some schools are very low
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions, which we tried to reply to in the attached document.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Kind Regards
The authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Please, see the attached file.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions, which we tried to reply to in the attached document.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Kind Regards
The authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 5 Report
I thank the authors for the opportunity to review the article.
I think it is an interesting and timely work for the well-being of our children. Although the introduction exposes the work in a sufficient way, I believe that the inevitable research design is not adequate for the object of study, which is reflected in the results obtained and in the discussion.
From my point of view, it would be much more interesting and rigorous to use a mixed methodology, recognizing the value of qualitative research. In addition, it would be appropriate to adequately describe the validity of the instruments used and to expand the number and group of the sample to the peer group, parents, teachers, etc.
I believe that the work lacks adequate methodological rigor.
Kind regards
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions, which we tried to reply to in the attached document.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Kind Regards
The authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for your responses to my queries.
There are still some typos within the text and Figures to fix before this can be published.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We attach a document with the answer to your suggestions and questions.
Kind regards
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
The Authors addressed almost all my concerns, I have some points to improve the quality of the manuscript prior to the publication.
1. I would suggest to improve the quality of figures (they seem to be "copy & pasted" from excel; it may be needed a graphic design software).
2. References are still not uniform and formatted as requested by the Journal Guidelines.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We attach a document with the answer to your suggestions and questions.
Kind regards
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 5 Report
Dear Authors.
I understand the purpose of the article; however, I still think that, even though it is a pilot study, it could have been carried out with a research design that would have provided more rigor both in obtaining the results and in their analysis.
Regrettably, I must stand by my initial decision to recommend against publication.
Kind regards.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We attach a document with the answer to your suggestions and questions.
Kind regards
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
