Participation and physical activity in organized recess tied to physical education in elementary schools: An interventional study

Abstract

Maintaining physical activity habits is important for long-term health benefits, however children do not adhere to the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. Comprehensive school physical activity programs (CSPAP) target several venues at school for physical activity. One part of the CSPAP, which can reach nearly all children, consists in connecting school recess and physical education. The purpose of this study was to investigate boys’ and girls’ voluntary participation and MVPA during recess sessions connected with physical education content, considering an intervention and a maintenance phase. Methods 147 (55 girls, 92 boys; mean age = 8 years) second grade children from seven different schools followed a 10-lesson unit parkour in physical education and were offered ten parkour recess sessions in which they could voluntarily participate (five sessions within the intervention phase and five sessions within the maintenance phase). The System for Observing Children’s Activity and Relationship during Play (SOCARP) tool was used to assess children’s MVPA. Results Voluntary participation in parkour recess was 64% for both boys and girls. Participation decreased from intervention to maintenance phase for both boys (75% vs 54%) and girls (80% vs 49%). Significant differences for MVPA between boys and girls were found for parkour recess (64% vs 58%) and traditional recess (49% vs 39%), but not for physical education (40% vs 37%). Conclusion The findings of this study suggest that one aspect of physical activity promotion is to connect recess activities with the content taught in physical education, which could contribute up to 20% of the daily recommended MVPA based on a single 20-minute recess session. These positive effects maintained when the connection between physical education and recess was ended.