Purpose: Despite the large body of evidence exploring the physical activity levels of elementary school children during physical education (PE), much less is known about the extent to which teacher specialization contributes to physical activity accumulation and sedentary time in this environment. As such, this meta-analysis sought to compare accelerometry-measured physical activity and sedentary time among elementary school students during PE lessons taught by generalist and specialist teachers.

Methods: Seven bibliographic databases were searched for peer-reviewed, English-language, original research that measured physical activity and/or sedentary time of elementary school children during PE using accelerometry, and indicated who was instructing the class (i.e., generalist or certified PE teacher). Percentage of PE lesson spent in moderate-to vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary time was synthesized across two types of teachers: generalists and specialists. Studies that provided percentage of PE class spent in MVPA/sedentary time, a standard deviation, and sample size were pooled for meta-analysis using the metafor package in R.

Results: Of the 42 included articles, 32 assessed MVPA/sedentary time during PE offered by specialist teachers, nine assessed PE offered by generalist teachers, and one presented results for both types of teachers. On average, children engaged in MVPA for 33% of their PE classes, and were sedentary for 36% of their PE classes. Subgroup analyses found that children spent an average of 34% of their PE class time in MVPA when taught by a specialist, and 30% of their PE class time in MVPA when a generalist was responsible for instruction. Similarly, children spent 34% of PE class time in sedentary pursuits under the instruction of a specialist, and 41% of PE class time when taught by a generalist teacher.

Conclusion: Overall, this review highlights that regardless of teacher specialization, physical activity levels during PE class at the elementary school level are low; and below the Centre of Disease Control and the United Kingdom’s Association for Physical Education recommendation of 50% of lesson time spent in MVPA. More focus is needed by both types of teachers on getting children moving during PE.

Purpose: Physically active lifestyle begins to develop already in childhood. Identifying individual characteristics that are linked with physical activity (PA) and/or sedentary time (SED) can assist in designing interventions and promoting actions for children. The present study aimed to examine the associations of childhood temperamental characteristics with PA and SED in Finnish children at 3 to 6 years of age.

Methods: We utilized cross-sectional DAGIS data collected in 2015-2016 (N=864). Temperament was reported by the parents using the Children's Behavior Questionnaire (the Very Short Form), and three broad temperament dimensions were constructed: surgency, negative affectivity, and effortful control. PA and SED were assessed over 24-hours during seven days using the hip-worn ActiGraph accelerometer, and the minutes per day spent in light, moderate, and vigorous PA as well as in SED were calculated. In total, 694 children (mean age: 4.7 ±0.9 years, 51.6% boys) had valid data available and were included in the study. Adjusted linear regression analyses were applied.

Results: Children’s score for surgency was on average 4.7 (±0.8) on a 7-point Likert scale, for negative affectivity 3.7 (±0.9), and for effortful control 5.2 (±0.7). They had light PA on average305 (±31.6) min/day, moderate PA 61 (±16.2) min/day, vigorous PA 24 (±11.3) min/day, and SED 380 (±45.0) min/day. Of the temperament dimensions, surgency was positively associated with light (B=3.45, p=0.014), moderate (B=4.47, p<0.001), and vigorous PA (B=2.71, p<0.001). In addition, effortful control was negatively associated with moderate (B= -2.18, p=0.007) and vigorous PA (B= -1.60, p=0.007). Furthermore, surgency was negatively (B= -10.51, p<0.001) and effortful control positively (B=5.25, p=0.023) associated with SED. There were no significant associations found between negative affectivity and PA or SED.

Conclusions: Our findings demonstrated that attention should be paid to the children`s different temperamental characteristics while supporting the development of the physically active lifestyle in early childhood.

Purpose: Overweight and obesity contribute to multiple health risks in children, while also impacting negatively on educational performance. Physical fitness is found to impact outcomes beyond health related measures, therefor it might​play a mediating role in the combating of negative effects of being overweight. We hypothesed that obesity will negatively affect academic performance of girls between 6 and 13 years longitudinally, but that physical fitness, can exert a mediational effect on such a negative long-term relationship between academic achievement and obesity.
Methods: Six to thirteen year-old primary school girls (N=172) from the North West Province of South Africa formed part of this random stratified longitudinal research design which included a baseline and two follow-up measurements over the seven year primary school period. Body mass index was used to compile obesity profiles, while the PACER test was used to determine cardiovascular fitness. Academic school achievements for Grades 1, Grade 4 and Grade 7, as well as national and provincial achievements were correlated with overweight status. A repeated measures over time ANOVA and a latent growth curve model from the Structural Equation Modelling framework (SEM) were used to anlyse the data.

Results: No differences (p> 0.05) were found in the academic performance of obese and normal weight girls, although obese girls showed poorer physical fitness values (p <0.05).​The SEM model was a good fit for all requirements (RMSEA, 0.60; CMIN / DF, 2.837; CFI, .966). VO2max had a standardized indirect mediation effect (-132) while body composition showed a standardized direct effect (.183) with academic achievement. Physical fitness showed a mediation effect with regard to obesity and academic achievement in Grade 7 girls. Obese, fit girls displayed higher academic performance compared to obese non-fit girls.

Conclusions: Although the academic performance of obese girls did not show impairment before the age of 12 years, physical fitness had a reversible effect on relationships between obesity and academic achievement. This substantial positive influence of physical fitness should be used strategically in preventive intervention programsto enhance cognitive functioning, academic performance and brain health among overweight children.

Purpose: International guidelines explicitly recommend school-aged youth (5-17 years) participate in muscle-strengthening physical activity (MSPA) on three or more days per week. However, the proportion of youth meeting this recommendation is largely unknown, and the factors influencing this health behaviour are poorly understood. Therefore, we aimed to explore associations between guideline-concordant MSPA and a range of demographic, biological, psychological, and behavioural predictors among a sample of Australian adolescents.

Methods: Baseline data were drawn from the ‘Resistance Training for Teens’ cluster RCT (collected April-June, 2015). Adolescents in Grade 9 (N = 602, 14.1±0.5 years, 50.3% female) from 16 schools in New South Wales, Australia were assessed on a number of demographic (sex, socio-economic status, language spoken at home), biological (health-related fitness), psychological (self-efficacy, perceived strength, motivation), and behavioural (screen-time, total physical activity [MVPA], sleep) measures. MSPA was self-reported and participants were dichotomised as: (i) meeting (≥3 days); or (ii) not meeting (0-2 days) the guideline. Binary logistic regression with odds ratios (OR) was used to determine associations between predictors and guideline-concordant MSPA.

Results: Analyses conducted for each variable group explained small-to-moderate (i.e., 3.1% to 23.3%) proportions of the variance in guideline-concordant MSPA. Sex, muscular fitness, resistance training [RT] self-efficacy, perceived strength, and total MVPA emerged as significant predictors. When all predictors were included simultaneously, the associations for sex, muscular fitness, and perceived strength were no longer significant. However, RT self-efficacy (OR = 2.48 [1.37 to 4.50]) and total MVPA (OR = 1.48 [1.22 to 1.79]) remained independent predictors of guideline-concordant MSPA, with the final model explaining 52.4% of the variance.

Conclusions: This study addresses a substantial gap in knowledge regarding youths' MSPA by examining a range of novel predictors that have not been explored in past research. RT self-efficacy and total MVPA were independent predictors of guideline-concordant MSPA in a sample of Australian adolescents. Future research should evaluate causality, but our findings may nonetheless have implications for the design and delivery of future interventions targeting adolescents' MSPA behaviour.

 

Purpose: There has been ongoing debate about whether physical activity compensation occurs. However, few experimental studies have examined the activitystat hypothesis in children. This study investigated whether short-term compensatory responses were observed following imposed or restricted physical activity at school.

 

Methods: The Reactivity to Activity (REACT) Study was a cross-over randomised controlled experiment that involved three one day experimental conditions: (a) additional light-intensity physical activity (LPA; standing condition); (b) additional moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA; sports condition); and (c) restricted LPA and MVPA (indoor play condition). In total, 368 children (47.3% boys) in Years 4-6 (age 8-12 years) from 7 primary schools participated. Children wore a hip-mounted ActiGraph accelerometer for 5 days (Monday-Friday) during a ‘usual’ week and during each ‘experimental’ week. Total counts for the experimental condition period, for the after-school period and overall on the experimental day, and overall on the following day were extracted from baseline and each experimental week. Paired t-tests examined differences between baseline and experimental time periods. Where differences were observed, differences in the composition of eight energy expenditure bands were examined using a paired Hotelling test for multivariate data using R (v3.5.1).  

 

Results: Total counts decreased by 21.2% and 20.9% during the indoor play experimental condition and whole experimental day, respectively, compared to a usual day. For the sports class condition, total counts increased by 42.8% and 38% during the condition period and whole day, respectively, compared to a usual day. In the afterschool period, a 9.6% decrease in counts was observed following the sports condition. In this period, children reduced their energy expenditure in the highest bands, which equated to MVPA, by 31.7%. Energy expenditure in the lowest bands, which equated to sedentary time and LPA, increased by 35.4%. On the following day, no detectable differences in counts compared to the matched usual day were observed for any condition.

 

Conclusions: These findings provide some support for a within-day compensation of physical activity following increased MVPA, but not for the other conditions. There was no evidence of between-day compensation, possibly due to the structure of the school day and surrounding environment. 

 

 

Purpose:

The transition out of secondary school is a time of significant change, associated with declines in physical activity. However, it is possible that not all adolescents experience detrimental changes in activity-related behaviour when they leave school. This study identified activity-related behaviour typologies and explored subsequent changes in typology membership during the transition out of secondary school.

Methods:

Year 11 students were recruited via schools and social media and completed annual follow-ups over two years (n=852 completed baseline (BL) and the two-year follow-up (FL); 75% female, mean age= 16.9±0.4 years). All measures were self-reported. Latent class analysis identified typologies of activity-related behaviours (active travel, leisure-time walking, moderate and vigorous physical activity, TV viewing, video gaming and computer use for leisure) at BL and FU, and transition analysis explored change in typology membership over time. Typology transitions were compared by gender, body mass index (BMI), post-school pathways.

Results:

At BL and FU, three descriptively similar typologies were identified and labelled: 1) Sedentary gamers (BL: 18%; FU: 15%: characterised by high levels of sedentary behaviours, particularly video gaming); 2) Inactives (BL: 47%; FU: 47%: low physical activities and average levels of sedentary behaviours compared to the other typologies); and 3) Actives (BL: 35%; FU: 38%: high physical activities and low sedentary behaviours). Most participants remained in the same typology across both time points (84%), 10% transitioned to a typology with a more health-enhancing profile and 7% transitioned to a typology with a more detrimental behavioural profile. Although BMI increased among the whole sample between BL and FU, this did not differ by typology transition. Transitions between typologies from BL to FU did not differ by gender or post-school pathways.

Conclusions:

Few adolescents moved towards more health-enhancing or detrimental profiles of activity-related behaviours as they transitioned out of secondary school, with no difference by gender, BMI or post-school pathways. The high proportion of ‘inactives’ and stability over the transition suggests that interventions are required to improve activity-related behaviour typologies before adolescents leave school.