Abstract
The Daily Mile is a popular physical activity initiative in primary schools, yet little is known regarding the activity patterns of children during The Daily Mile. Eighty children (10.4 ± 0.7 years) participated in The Daily Mile (20-min). Activity patterns were assessed using global positioning systems (total distance and age-specific speed zones), alongside heart rate. Cardiorespiratory fitness was assessed using the Multi-Stage Fitness Test. Participants covered a distance of 2511 ± 550 m during The Daily Mile, and heart rate was 163 ± 27 beats.min−1. Participants travelled the furthest distance, and were most intermittent, during the first 5 min (main effect of time, both p < 0.001). Boys ran further and their activity was more intermittent compared to girls (main effect of sex, both p < 0.001). Moreover, the highest fit children ran further than less fit children (main effect of fitness, p < 0.001). This study provides novel evidence of the nature of physical activity during The Daily Mile; demonstrating that children covered, on average, 1.5-miles and exercised at a moderate-to-vigorous intensity. Furthermore, boys covered a greater distance and were more intermittent than girls; whilst higher fit children ran further than lower fit children. In summary, The Daily Mile makes a valuable contribution to in-school physical activity targets in all children.
Highlights
Since its development in 2012, the school-based physical activity (PA) initiative The Daily MileTM, has gained research interest as it has been widely and rapidly adopted and has received substantial funding
Emerging evidence suggests that chronic participation in The Daily Mile over a period of six months results in beneficial effects for both adiposity (1.4 mm reduction in sum of skinfolds) and physical fitness (40 m increase in multi-stage fitness test performance), when compared to children who did not participate in The Daily Mile[3]
Speed zone entries, and intermittent activity, decreased over the middle 10 min of The Daily Mile but increased slightly in the last 5 min. These findings suggest that children may invest additional effort when they know that they are approaching the end of a bout of PA; providing young people with information that there is 5 min remaining during The Daily Mile may increase the distance covered towards the end of the activity
Summary
Since its development in 2012, the school-based physical activity (PA) initiative The Daily MileTM, has gained research interest as it has been widely and rapidly adopted and has received substantial funding. The Department of Health and Social Care target of 30 min in-school MVPA per day), yet the least active child spent only 33% of The Daily Mile engaged in MVPA (accumulating only 17% of the 30 min in-school target)[13] While valuable, these findings highlight the need for additional research which provides a more comprehensive explanation of the activity patterns of children during The Daily Mile. Contrasting evidence demonstrated that girls participated in more MVPA during recess periods compared to boys (38% vs 31% of recess time, respectively)[22] Taken together, these findings suggest that it is vital that sex is considered in research which aims to investigate and/or evaluate PA interventions in young people. No studies have explored whether other aspects of children’s activity patterns (e.g. speed and the intermittent vs. continuous nature of PA) may be different between the sexes during participation in PA interventions
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