Playground designs to increase physical activity levels during school recess: a systematic review

Abstract

School recess provides a major opportunity to increase children's physical activity levels. Various studies have described strategies to increase levels of physical activity. The purpose of this systematic review is therefore to examine the interventions proposed as forms of increasing children's physical activity levels during recess. A systematic search of seven databases was made from the July 1 to July 5, 2012, leading to a final set of eight studies (a total of 2,383 subjects-599 "preschoolers" and 1,784 "schoolchildren") meeting the inclusion criteria. These studies were classified according to the intervention used: playground markings, game equipment, playground markings plus physical structures, and playground markings plus game equipment. The results of these studies indicate that the strategies analyzed do have the potential to increase physical activity levels during recess. The cumulative evidence was (a) that interventions based on playground markings, game equipment, or a combination of the two, do not seem to increase the physical activity of preschoolers and schoolchildren during recess and (ii) that interventions based on playground markings plus physical structures do increase the physical activity of schoolchildren during recess in the short to medium term.

Keywords: accelerometer; break time; physical activity; school.