Physically active academic lessons in elementary children

Abstract

Background: Although schools are an ideal location to conduct interventions that target children, the emphasis on standardized testing makes it difficult to implement interventions that do not directly support academic instruction. In response, physically active academic lessons have been developed as a strategy to increase physical activity while also addressing core educational goals. Texas I-CAN! is one incarnation of this approach.

Methods: We will review the on-going research on the impact of these active lessons on: teacher implementation, child step count, child attention control, and academic performance.

Results: The collected studies support the impact of physically active academic lessons on each area of interest.

Conclusions: If these data can be replicated, it suggests that teachers might find these lessons of benefit to their primary role as educators, which should ease dissemination of these and other physically active lessons in elementary schools.

Figure 1

Change in average steps/day from baseline to posttest between the Texas I-CAN! intervention schools with active, academic lessons (n=4) and control schools with traditional, sedentary lessons (n=4).