Abstract
(1) School-based physical activity programs such as intramurals provide youth with inclusive opportunities to be physically active, yet we know little about how types of intramurals (e.g., team and individual sports) may contribute to youth MVPA. This research aims to evaluate how real-world changes in types of intramurals available in schools impact youth physical activity over time. (2) This study used three years of longitudinal school- and student-level data from Ontario schools participating in year 5 (2016–2017), year 6 (2017–2018) and year 7 (2018–2019) of the COMPASS study. Data on types of intramural programs from 55 schools were obtained, baseline demographic characteristics were measured and data on physical activity and sport participation were collected on a sample of 4417 students. Hierarchical linear mixed regression models were used to estimate how changes in the type of intramurals associate with youth MVPA over time. (3) Regardless of participation, adding individual and team intramurals was significantly and positively associated with female MVPA in Y6. (4) The indirect, but positive relationship between adding individual and team intramurals and female MVPA may be explained by other characteristics of the school environment that are conducive to female MVPA.
Highlights
Accepted: 3 March 2021Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) is positively associated with physical and mental health among youth and is important in healthy development and disease prevention [1,2]
Specific to the change in types of intramurals from year 5 (Y5) to year 6 (Y6), 13 schools primarily added individual intramurals, 17 schools primarily added team intramurals, 5 schools added individual and team intramurals, 3 schools made no net change to intramurals and 17 schools removed intramurals
The intraclass correlation (ICC) was calculated to estimate the amount of variation in March 2021Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) that can be attributed to school-level differences for both female and male students
Summary
Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) is positively associated with physical and mental health among youth and is important in healthy development and disease prevention [1,2]. Despite these benefits, only one-third of Canadian youth are meeting the Canadian guidelines of at least 60 min of MVPA per day [3,4,5], and MVPA tends to decrease in youth as they age [6,7]. School-based physical activity programs can effectively target physical inactivity [20,21], especially if these
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