Most studies focussed solely on active  travel  to and /or from school , and showed significant positive associations with physical activity .
The same relationship was detected for active travel to leisure-related places and independent mobility with physical activity .
An inverse relationship between active travel to school and weight status was evident but findings were inconsistent .
Studies on independent mobility suggested that children who have the freedom to play outdoors and travel actively without adult supervision accumulate more physical activity than those who do not .
Further investigation of children 's active travel to leisure-related destinations , measurement of diverse sedentary behaviour beyond simply screen-based activities , and consistent thresholds for objective ly measured sedentary behaviour in children will clarify the inconsistent evidence base on associations of active travel with sedentary behaviour and weight status
UNLABELLED Health benefits from  children 's independent mobility and active travel beyond school travel are largely unexplored .
OBJECTIVES This review synthesized the evidence for associations of independent mobility and active travel to various destinations with physical activity , sedentary behaviour and weight status .
Quality of reporting of observational longitudinal research.
Observational longitudinal research is particularly useful for assessing etiology and prognosis and for providing evidence for clinical decision making . However , there are no structured reporting requirements for studies of this design to assist authors , editors , and readers . The authors developed and tested a checklist of criteria related to threats to the internal and external validity of observational longitudinal studies . The checklist criteria concerned recruitment , data collection , biases , and data analysis and descriptive issues relevant to study rationale , study population , and generalizability . Two raters independently assessed 49 r and omly selected articles describing stroke research published from 1999 to 2003 in six journals : American Journal of Epidemiology , Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health , Stroke , Annals of Neurology , Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation , and American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation . On average , 17 of the 33 checklist criteria were reported . Criteria describing the study design were better reported than those related to internal validity . No relation was found between study type ( etiologic or prognostic ) or word count and quality of reporting . A flow diagram for summarizing participant flow through a study was developed . Editors and authors should consider using a checklist and flow diagram when reporting on observational longitudinal research
Most studies focussed solely on active  travel  to and /or from school , and showed significant positive associations with physical activity .
The same relationship was detected for active travel to leisure-related places and independent mobility with physical activity .
An inverse relationship between active travel to school and weight status was evident but findings were inconsistent .
Studies on independent mobility suggested that children who have the freedom to play outdoors and travel actively without adult supervision accumulate more physical activity than those who do not .
Further investigation of children 's active travel to leisure-related destinations , measurement of diverse sedentary behaviour beyond simply screen-based activities , and consistent thresholds for objective ly measured sedentary behaviour in children will clarify the inconsistent evidence base on associations of active travel with sedentary behaviour and weight status
UNLABELLED Health benefits from  children 's independent mobility and active travel beyond school travel are largely unexplored .
OBJECTIVES This review synthesized the evidence for associations of independent mobility and active travel to various destinations with physical activity , sedentary behaviour and weight status .