Abstract
The integration of physical activity into the school day is a key aspect for the promotion of “comprehensive school physical activity programs”. The proposal of physical activity breaks, known as “Active Breaks” may provide an opportunity to extend the practice of motor activity during curricular hours, alternating too many sedentary moments with short-term physical activity. The aim was to determine the effectiveness of Active Breaks use on motor performance, cognitive engagement and psychological correlates of primary school children. The PRISMA protocol was used to conduct a systematic review of EBSCOhost, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science databases. A total of 16 articles met inclusion criteria (Active Breaks based Intervention, a quantitative-qualitative analysis between factors included, participants aged 4 to 12 years). Studies based on extracurricular activities, literature reviews, lectures, monographs, dissertations and similar documents were excluded. Results evidence: 1) moderate impact of active breaks in increasing MVPA physical activity levels; 2) low efficacy about cardiorespiratory fitness improvement, and BMI management; 3) moderate improvement in cognitive engagement, positive attitude towards physical activity, perceived self-efficacy and behavior in the classroom. The integration of Active Breaks during the school day contributes to reconsider the pedagogical and didactic impact of the bodily-motor experiences. However, future researches on a rational application and intervention strategies are necessary to evaluate impact and efficacy on didactic process.
Highlights
The contribution of physical activity for the promotion of health and the prevention of chronic degenerative pathologies has been amply highlighted by international literature, which describes different types of intervention involving different sectors and educational contexts: school, sports start-up, sport, public health, free time, etc.The international guidelines of the WHO recommend, for children and adolescents (5 - 17 years), the practice of at least 60 minutes of moderate to intense daily physical activity (WHO, 2014), with an energy expenditure of 3 to 9 METS (Norton et al, 2010)
The integration of physical activity into the school day is a key aspect for the promotion of “comprehensive school physical activity programs”
The aim of this paper is to provide a review based on effects of active breaks in primary school regarding 1) levels of physical activity, 2) academic performance, 3) motor development and 4) related psychological factors, highlighting strengths and weaknesses about their rational proposal
Summary
The contribution of physical activity for the promotion of health and the prevention of chronic degenerative pathologies has been amply highlighted by international literature, which describes different types of intervention involving different sectors and educational contexts: school, sports start-up, sport, public health, free time, etc.The international guidelines of the WHO recommend, for children and adolescents (5 - 17 years), the practice of at least 60 minutes of moderate to intense daily physical activity (WHO, 2014), with an energy expenditure of 3 to 9 METS (Norton et al, 2010). A large percentage of young people and adolescents in different countries do not comply with these recommendations on the practice of physical activity (WHO, 2014), highlighting an important decline in physical activity levels especially in adolescents (Chan et al, 2017). Sedentary lifestyles lead to reduced levels of physical activity that strongly affect the rate of obesity, increase the risk factors related to the onset of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases in young people (NCD Risk Factor Collaboration, 2017). Reduced levels of physical activity reflect a decline in coordinative and conditional motor performance, especially in the last 15 years (Huotari et al, 2018), and a deterioration of cognitive functions and of the socio-relational components associated with the practice of motor activity (Kao et al, 2018)
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