Effects of a health‐promotion programme in sixth grade German students' physical education

Abstract

The aim of the study was to assess the effects of a school-based health-promotion programme in physical education (PE) on sixth grade German students' motor performance, BMI and health-related quality of life (HRQOL). In a quasi-experimental design, 516 students (54.7% girls) were assigned to either the intervention group (IG) that received eight 90-minute health-promoting PE lessons or the control group (CG), which continued regular PE. Outcome variables were assessed at baseline, immediately after, and three months after the intervention in order to explore significant short- and middle-term intervention effects, respectively. The intervention programme had gender specific effects in motor performance with girls reaching higher levels. Positive short-term intervention effects were found in girls' sideways jumps (η (2)=0.17) and negative effects were measured in the 20-meter sprints (η (2)=0.05) and the standing long jump (η (2)=0.04). Positive middle-term effects were measured on the motor performance score (η (2)=0.05), sideways jumps (η (2)=0.08) and stand-and-reach flexibility (η (2)=0.04). In boys, short-term positive intervention effects were found in 20-meter sprints (η (2)=0.04). In the middle-term, differences in favour of the CG were found in press-ups (η (2)=0.03) and sideways jumps (η (2)=0.06). Concerning BMI the IG had significantly lower levels compared to the CG in the short-term (η (2)=0.04) and in the middle-term (η (2)=0.03), respectively. There were no significant differences between the groups in HRQOL. In conclusion, the results demonstrate the feasibility of promoting health related parameters in PE, but also raise the question whether gender-specific tailored interventions would result in higher intervention effects concerning motor performance especially in boys.

Effectiveness of a family intervention on health-related quality of life–a healthy generation, a controlled pilot trial

“…The focus on disadvantaged areas is also novel. Previous studies have either been school-based [41,42] or involved a community approach, but with older participants [30]. Our findings on the correlation of HRQOL within families at baseline stress the importance of involving the entire family in health promotion interventions.…”

Promotion of physical activity-related health competence in physical education: study protocol for the GEKOS cluster randomized controlled trial

“…Beyond that, they reported that they had less fun in PE during the health promotion program than girls compared with regular PE. The different acceptance of the health promotion program in this study was associated with higher benefits on girls’ than on boys’ physical fitness [3, 8]. These findings raise the question of gender-specific effectiveness of health promotion programs in PE.…”

“…The main goal of the project GEKOS (Förderung bewegungsbezogener Gesundheitskompetenz im Sportunterricht) is to investigate the impact of a health and physical fitness-related PE program that combines practice and theory on physical activity-related health competence (PAHCO) in lower secondary students. In recent years, various school-based intervention studies aimed to promote students’ health or physical fitness, increase their physical activity (PA) level, or affect the psychological determinants of PA (e.g., knowledge, motivation, attitudes towards PA) [3, 4]. According to a review by Demetriou and Höner [5], school-based interventions that include a PA component can significantly affect students’ physical fitness level (70% of the reviewed studies) or PA behavior (57% of the reviewed studies).…”

“…The primary aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of two health and physical fitness-related programs on the acquisition of PAHCO compared to a control group in PE. The two interventions include the same topics (health and physical fitness) as well as methodological concepts and only differ regarding the type of PA that is used to pass on the programs’ content to the students: Running and jumping activities were chosen as a more common type of PA in the context of promoting health and physical fitness, whereas small-sided (ball) games were selected to consider possible gender-specific preferences of PA [3, 25]. Moreover, small-sided games are also appropriate to promote physical fitness and health in youth [26, 27].…”

Determinants of Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior in German Elementary School Physical Education Lessons

“…However, the scientific involvement with the topic in Germany is mostly conceptually oriented (e.g., Balz, 1995;Brodtmann, 1998;Töpfer, 2017). Quantitative empirical data on health effects of German PE is sparse and particularly emphasizes direct health and fitness consequences of secondary school PE (e.g., Tittlbach et al, 2010;Höner and Demetriou, 2014). A key variable of most studies is movement intensity, typically measured by heart rate monitor (Adler et al, 2006;Fröhlich et al, 2008;Wydra, 2009), pedometer (Uhlenbrock et al, 2008), and accelerometer (Kobel et al, 2015(Kobel et al, , 2017Kretschmann et al, 2016).…”