School Programs to Increase Physical Activity

JOPERD • Volume 78 No. 5 • May/June 2007 N umerous reports have identifi ed substantial health benefi ts from regular participation in physical activity during childhood, and schools have been identifi ed as the primary agencies responsible for promoting the adoption of active lifestyles in children. Healthy People 2010 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2000), Guidelines for School and Community Programs: Promoting Lifelong Physical Activity (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1997), and public health leaders (e.g., McKenzie, Sallis, Kolody, & Faucette, 1997) all advocate for schools and teachers taking a major role in promoting physical activity. A quality physical education program is at the heart of any plan to promote lifelong participation in enjoyable physical activity. In physical education, students are provided opportunities to engage in a range of developmentally appropriate movement activities and are taught basic skills that make participation more enjoyable. Competent physical education teachers play a critical role in giving students the knowledge to make good activity choices and helping them develop the skills and confi dence needed to adopt healthy lifestyles. Nevertheless, while most schools require some physical education, it has become clear that the instructional time allotted is insuffi cient to provide children with the recommended minimum levels of physical activity. The National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE, 2004) has suggested that elementary school-age children should accumulate more than 60 minutes of age-appropriate physical activity each day, and physical education classes alone cannot provide opportunities for children to achieve that recommendation. For this reason, schools are beginning to increase children’s activity levels by incorporating a whole-school approach that involves interdisciplinary collaboration among all school personnel. Regular classroom teachers, for example, can promote daily exercise and help children understand the importance of making regular physical activity a lifelong habit. In addition, children can be provided with take-home activities for families to share. This article introduces several whole-school programs that have been designed to promote increased physical activity and healthy lifestyle choices for elementary school children. Recognizing that physical education specialists alone cannot address the physical activity needs of children, researchers at Louisiana State University (LSU) conducted a series of studies designed to develop successful strategies for partnering with elementary schools to implement a whole-school intervention program. This article describes several of these investigations and how they helped to identify both the benefi ts and the challenges associated with implementing physical activity across the curriculum. The success of a whole-school physical activity program depends on teachers and principals who recognize the potential health benefi ts of integrating physical activity into the total school experience and accept such a program on a wide-scale School Programs to Increase Physical Activity