There was some evidence that school-based physical activity interventions had a positive impact on four of the nine outcome measures .
Specifically positive effects were observed for duration of physical activity , television viewing , VO2 max , and blood cholesterol .
Generally , school-based interventions had little effect on physical activity rates , systolic and diastolic blood pressure , BMI , and pulse rate .
At a minimum , a combination of printed educational material s and changes to the school curriculum that promote physical activity result ed in positive effects .
Few changes in outcomes were observed in this up date with the exception of blood cholesterol and physical activity rates .
For example blood cholesterol was no longer positively impacted upon by school-based physical activity interventions .
The evidence suggests the ongoing implementation of school-based physical activity interventions at this time , given the positive effects on behavior and one physical health status measure .
BACKGROUND The World Health Organization ( WHO ) estimates that 1.9 million deaths worldwide are attributable to physical inactivity and at least 2.6 million deaths are a result of being overweight or obese .
In addition , WHO estimates that physical inactivity causes 10 % to 16 % of cases each of breast cancer , colon , and rectal cancers as well as type 2 diabetes , and 22 % of coronary heart disease and the burden of these and other chronic diseases has rapidly increased in recent decades .
OBJECTIVES The purpose of this systematic review was to summarize the evidence of the effectiveness of school-based interventions in promoting physical activity and fitness in children and adolescents .
An alternative design for small-scale school health experiments: does daily walking produce benefits in physical performance of school children?
BACKGROUND The mainstream r and omized clinical trial is not always feasible in a school setting . There might be practical and ethical issues that make dividing school classes into an intervention and a control group impossible or undesirable , and there is a need to explore the validity of alternative design s and analyses . METHODS An alternative to a r and omized clinical trial in a physical performance experiment at a school is introduced and evaluated . The before-intervention data are utilized as control data for the intervention data in addition to adjust for pre-intervention differences . The strict class year structure of school data makes this possible . In a rural school in inl and Norway , all school children joined the project of walking in a rugged terrain outside school for 20 min every school day during one school year . Measurements of low back static endurance , hamstrings flexibility , st and ing balance and cardiovascular fitness were made before and after the intervention . As intervention and ' aging ' were confounded , the special use of the pre-intervention data , ' age-adjusted ' , is proposed to solve this issue . A comparison with having an independent control group is performed . RESULTS The alternative analysing method is judged to yield valid results without having an independent control group . The age-adjusted analyses showed 11 % increase in low back static endurance , 8 % increase in hamstrings flexibility , 69 % increase in balance and 6 - 13 % increase in cardiovascular fitness . The effects were largest among those children who had the lowest performances before the intervention . CONCLUSION The introduced statistical methods display that , in a school population , evaluations from an experiment can be made without an independent control group . A 20-min walk during school time for 1 year seemed to improve physical performance
There was some evidence that school-based physical activity interventions had a positive impact on four of the nine outcome measures .
Specifically positive effects were observed for duration of physical activity , television viewing , VO2 max , and blood cholesterol .
Generally , school-based interventions had little effect on physical activity rates , systolic and diastolic blood pressure , BMI , and pulse rate .
At a minimum , a combination of printed educational material s and changes to the school curriculum that promote physical activity result ed in positive effects .
Few changes in outcomes were observed in this up date with the exception of blood cholesterol and physical activity rates .
For example blood cholesterol was no longer positively impacted upon by school-based physical activity interventions .
The evidence suggests the ongoing implementation of school-based physical activity interventions at this time , given the positive effects on behavior and one physical health status measure .
BACKGROUND The World Health Organization ( WHO ) estimates that 1.9 million deaths worldwide are attributable to physical inactivity and at least 2.6 million deaths are a result of being overweight or obese .
In addition , WHO estimates that physical inactivity causes 10 % to 16 % of cases each of breast cancer , colon , and rectal cancers as well as type 2 diabetes , and 22 % of coronary heart disease and the burden of these and other chronic diseases has rapidly increased in recent decades .
OBJECTIVES The purpose of this systematic review was to summarize the evidence of the effectiveness of school-based interventions in promoting physical activity and fitness in children and adolescents .