School-based physical activity interventions: effectiveness, trends, issues, implications and recommendations for practice

Abstract

The promotion of physical activity within schools and Physical Education (PE) has attracted growing interest in recent years. Schools have been acknowledged as the primary institution with responsibility for promoting activity in young people and more specifically, school PE has been recognized as having a key role to play. Given this, and based on previous reviews of the findings of formally evaluated interventions, this paper considers the evidence for the effectiveness of school based physical activity interventions and highlights the key trends and a number of issues concerning their type, target population, design, implementation and content. Earlier reviews have provided comprehensive summaries of the effectiveness of physical activity interventions but they have not provided specific guidance for teachers' practice in schools. Thus, whilst it is acknowledged that the existing literature is not sufficiently extensive to provide definitive guidelines for schools, this paper considers the implications for practice and presents recommendations for future physical activity programmes, initiatives and interventions. Armstrong, N. & Van Mechelen, W. (1998) Are young people fit and active?, in: S. Biddle, J. Sallis & N. Cavill (Eds) Young and active? young people and health-enhancing physical activity-Evidence and implications (London, Health Education Authority), 69-97. Biddle, S. (1991) Promoting health related physical activity in schools, in N. Armstrong & A. Sparkes (Eds.) Issues in physical education (London, Cassell Education), 155-169.

A Framework for Physical Activity Programs Within School–Community Partnerships

“…Focusing on extracurricular approaches, community links could be realized by constructing local strategic partnerships between schools and organizations from other sectors of the community. Moreover, community links could maximize young people's PA opportunities (Cale & Harris, 2006;De Martelaer & Theeboom, 2006).…”

“…Since young people of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds spend a substantial amount of time at school, researchers and policy makers have recommended utilizing the school setting for the promotion of PA (Cale & Harris, 2006;Fox, Cooper, & McKenna, 2004;Pate & O'Neill, 2008). The authors of Healthy People 2010 recommend that physical education (PE) is offered on a daily basis and that PE programs require pupils to engage in MVPA during at least 50% of class time (US Department of Health and Human Services 2000), as long as the other primary objectives (e.g., learning motor skills for lifelong PA, learning to enjoy PA, selfmanagement, TASK-orientation, etc.)…”

Health Promoting Secondary Schools: Community-Based Research Examining Voice, Choice and the School Setting

“…Furthermore, children and youth are a unique population given their compulsory attendance at school and required health and education curricula in many jurisdictions [13,14]. In fact schools have been identified as a key location for health promotion and obesity prevention as a way of reaching a variety of individuals and as an effective location for implementing PA and nutrition programs [15][16][17]. "Given physical education involves all young people, of all sizes, in regular physical activity … and provides opportunities for them to acquire and develop the skills and knowledge required to be physically active, it seems only logical for it to play a part in addressing obesity" [16].…”

“…To our knowledge; a whole school intervention that targets students in grades 9-12 in Canada has not yet been evaluated. While previous models have used a prescriptive approach, it could be argued that each school's unique needs must be considered and we are cognizant that "more of the same (in terms of research and practice) will not be enough" [15,22,[28][29][30]. We also know that interventions that target the adolescent population may be more successful if adolescents are participants in the development and implementation of the program.…”

“…This model embraces social ecological ideas of systems and context and is noted as one of the seven 'best investments' for improving PA levels by targeting classroom learning and policy, and supporting PA across the school setting and day [20,21]. Scholars have noted that whole school approaches are 'an imperative strategy' to address adolescent obesity and other health issues [15,22]. Indeed in the authors' province of British Columbia (BC), the Ministry of Education website supports the notion of health promoting schools and states that "given the inextricable link between health and education, schools provide an ideal setting for children to learn healthy habits that can benefit them for the rest of their lives" [23].…”