Active Breaks: A Pilot and Feasibility Study to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Physical Activity Levels in a School Based Intervention in an Italian Primary School

Abstract

Background: The school gives access to children, regardless of age, ethnicity, gender and socio-economic class and can be identified as the key environment in which to promote children’s physical activity (PA). The guidelines of the European Union recommend accumulating at least 10-min bouts of PA to reach the daily 60 min. Active breaks (ABs) led by teachers inside the classroom represent a good strategy to promote PA. The aim of this pilot and feasibility study was to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness in terms of PA level of an AB programme in children aged 8–9 years attending primary school. Methods: A pre-post quasi-experimental pilot and feasibility study was performed in two primary school classes, one of which was assigned to a 14-week AB intervention (AB group) and the other to the control group (CG). At baseline and at follow-up, children were monitored for sedentary and motor activity during an entire week using ActiGraph Accelerometer (ActiLife6 wGT3X-BT). The satisfaction of children and teachers was assessed by self-administered questionnaires. Results: In the pre-post comparison, AB group (n = 16) showed a reduction in the minutes spent in weekly sedentary activity (−168.7 min, p > 0.05), an increase in the number of step counts (+14,026.9, p < 0.05) and in time spent in moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA): weekly MVPA: +64.4 min, daily MVPA: +8.05 min, percentage of MVPA: +0.70%. On the contrary, CG showed a worsening in all variables. ANCOVA analysis, after adjusting for baseline values, showed significant differences between the AB group and CG for time spent in MVPA, percentage of MVPA and step counts. The satisfaction of children and teachers was good. Teachers were able to adapt the AB protocol to the needs of the school curriculum, thus confirming the feasibility of the AB programme. Conclusions: This pilot and feasibility study showed the feasibility and effectiveness of the AB protocol and represented the basis for a future controlled trial.

Classroom Active Breaks to Increase Children’s Physical Activity: A Cross-Sectional Study in the Province of Naples, Italy

“…In the present study, we found that children who performed two 5-min CABs in a typical school day, spent about 6 min less time in sedentary behavior and increased their light and MVPA (of about 4 and 2 min) with respect to controls. Our findings show the effectiveness of AulAttiva in increasing time dedicated to PA along the school day in the real world, in agreement with other similar studies [ 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 ].…”

“…Webster et al did not find any statistically significant relationship between BMI percentiles and participation in MVPA during CABs [ 32 ], while Bershwinger and Brusseau found that obese children had the greatest increase of MVPA compared to normal weight children (6.2 vs. 4.2 min), even if the differences were not significant [ 33 ]. Recently, the study by Masini et al showed longer time spent in MVPA by normal weight respect to overweight/obese Italian children involved in CABs [ 25 ].…”

A Multiple Targeted Research Protocol for a Quasi-Experimental Trial in Primary School Children Based on an Active Break Intervention: The Imola Active Breaks (I-MOVE) Study

“…The I-MOVE study is a school-based intervention study with a quasi-experimental design (controlled studies in which exposure was assigned by the investigator without using randomization) [ 20 ]. The current project was based on a feasibility pilot study [ 21 ] and a meta-analysis on the evaluation of school-based interventions [ 17 ]. Findings from both were used to design, structure, manage and organize the I-MOVE study.…”

“…Sample size was estimated considering the actigraph accelerometers as a primary outcome measure of the study. Sample size calculations were based on the pilot and feasibility study [ 21 ], which detected a mean difference of 98.1 min in weekly total MVPA, measured using the accelerometer, between the intervention group and control group.…”

“…The I-MOVE protocol was developed and tested, based on a previous pilot and feasibility study [ 18 ]. Some exercises of the I-MOVE protocol were implemented and suggested by the teachers of the previous Valsamoggia study [ 21 ].…”