Chapter 8 Physical Activity Change Through Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs in Urban Elementary Schools

Abstract

The impact of Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs (CSPAPs) on urban children’s, educators’, and parents’ physical activity (PA) is relatively unknown. The purpose of this study was to explore overall changes in student, educator, and parent PA after an 8-month CSPAP-based program. This longitudinal, exploratory study implemented a CSPAP in 20 urban elementary schools, with six randomized for research. In-school PA was measured prepost for all fourth grade students using accelerometers. Parent and educator PA was self-reported using the IPAQ. RM-ANOVAs revealed significant prepost increases in minutes of student MVPA (P < .001). Parents significantly increased PA (P < .01) and although educators’ reported change in PA, it was not statistically significant (P = .50). This study provides unique information about the potential influence of one CSPAP on students’ overall PA, PA by individual context within the school, the differential PA patterns by race, and PA changes for educators and parents.

Building Healthy Communities: Creating Policy to Sustain Health-Related School Change

“…Given the need for healthy school cultures, BHC has been successfully replicated in more than 140 Midwest elementary schools since 2012. Student-level outcomes of the BHC program adoption include increased physical activity (Centeio et al, 2014), exposure to a variety of new healthful foods and increased fruit, vegetable, and dairy consumption aligning with national standards. Students have significantly increased their amount of moderate to vigorous physical activity time and reduced their BMI and central adiposity (Centeio et al, 2014;Centeio et al, 2018b).…”

The Physical Activity Leader and Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program Effectiveness

“…CSPAP interventions have demonstrated positive change across a number of outcomes [4] including physical activity, health-related fitness and motor skill development. More specifically, recent research has suggested that CSPAP can improve a number of outcomes including physical activity [15], health-related fitness [3], motor skill proficiency [9], classroom on-task behavior [8] and physical activity enjoyment [20]. Kulinna and colleagues [30] reported that multi-component school physical activity programming decreased the number of school nurse visits and improved school attendance and Burns and colleagues [7] linked CSPAP to improvements in cardio-metabolic health.…”

PETE Programs Creating Teacher Leaders to Integrate Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs

“…Given the current volume of national physical activity initiatives that are led primarily by teachers, coupled with the fact that the CSPAP is now considered the guiding national framework for schoolwide physical activity integration (CDC, 2013), the purpose of this JOPERD feature is to provide a platform for teacher educators to describe their efforts with the hope of inspiring fellow teacher educators to consider integrating similar CSPAP experiences that have the potential to increase physical activity engagement and change school culture. (Centeio, Erwin, & Castelli,, 2014;Centeio, McCaugtry, et al, 2014). In turn, school administrators commonly credit the teachers when a CSPAP is successfully integrated, creating a shift in school culture (Deslatte & Carson, 2014).…”