School-Based Physical Activity Interventions in Southeast Asia: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background: This study attempts to review longitudinal school-based physical activity (PA) interventions in Southeast Asia countries Materials and Methods: ScienceDirect, PubMed and Scopus databases were used, which ranged from the years 2003 until April 2018. A total of twelve studies were included in the final review including seven from Malaysia, three from Singapore, one from Indonesia and one from Thailand. Results:The findings from Malaysian studies showed that EPaL provides students with cognitive and behavioural skills to cause changes in targeted behaviours by aiming to alter disordered eating behaviour, promoting PA, preventing sedentary lifestyle and enhancing eating behaviours. The integration of the transtheoretical framework improves participant adherence. Furthermore, circuit training was implemented during PE classes. The results showed significant improvements in the reduction of BMI, cardiovascular endurance and flexibility. In addition, MASCOT is ideal for promoting health and reducing obesity in Malaysian children as it has shown to improve BMI and total PA. In the Indonesian study, low-intensity endurance exercise of lower extremity has shown improvements in lowerextremity endurance as well as V02 max before for individuals with lower physical capacity. In Thailand, child health promotion programme has been shown to reduce the percentage of obesity of school children in the long--term. Finally, exergaming in the Singaporean studies showed improvements in attitude, self-efficacy, and perceived behavioural control. Conclusion:Limited studies were conducted on studying the cause of longitudinal PA implementation in school settings and its impact in Southeast Asia. Therefore, future studies are proposed to investigate this relationship and utilise comprehensive frameworks to identify domains for facilitating or inhibiting PA implementation.