School-based exercise gives students major health boost
Children can strengthen their fitness level and lose body fat if they participate in a structured physical activity programme, a new European research study has found. Presented in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the study's findings could encourage schools across Europe to kick-start such programmes, effectively improving the health and fitness of youngsters and setting them on the road to a healthy adulthood. The researchers, led by the Institute of Exercise and Health Sciences at the University of Basel in Switzerland, evaluated a 540-strong sample of young children in 15 Swiss schools over a 9-month period. Their objective was to assess the effectiveness of a school-based physical activity programme on young schoolchildren's physical and psychological health. The 7- and 11-year-old students that were placed in an intervention group completed an expert-designed physical activity programme that consisted of the students' 3 existing physical education lessons plus 2 new ones. The youngsters also completed physical activity homework and had short activity breaks each day. The students placed in the control group continued to have their three regular lessons each week but received no new lessons or other activities. The study found that the children placed in the intervention group improved their aerobic fitness, lowered their cardiovascular risk, lost body fat and had higher levels of in-school physical activity. It should be noted, however, that daily physical activity and quality of life did not change dramatically on the whole. From an educational angle, 90% of the children and 70% of the teachers relished the lessons and would welcome their continuation. What made this programme a success, the researchers said, was its attractiveness to the children and teachers, its intensity, its integration into the school curriculum, and the use of expert physical education teachers. Childhood obesity and cardiovascular disease levels continue to swell in Europe. Data released by the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) in 2005 show that one European child in five is overweight or obese. An analysis of data from surveys carried out across Europe for more than 30 years points to a shift in the trend during the mid 1990s. IOTF experts believe the figure will only continue to rise if action is not taken. The Swiss programme offers Europeans a practical solution to this escalating problem. The researchers said that because the Swiss population is considered representative for central Europe, the results may apply to other Western nations. But the researchers from Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland also noted that while the programme was successful for the one-year assessment period, they are unsure about the sustainability of its effects. 'Future research should include intervention programmes over several years and long-term follow up to define the ideal content, setting and duration of preventive interventions, as well as assessment of costs to define cost-effectiveness of such interventions,' they wrote in their paper. In an accompanying editorial, researchers from the Institute of Metabolic Science in the UK commented that while school-based physical activity programmes have potential, they are hard to sustain. 'The strengths of the study include the high level of implementation of the intervention, its high degree of integration into the school system, and the high-quality evaluation - something often lacking in previous research,' they wrote. The study's findings showed major benefits on physical activity, fitness, cardiovascular risk status and body fat, they concluded.
Countries
Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands