Background/Purpose Although outdoor recess provides youth with physical activity (PA) opportunities, during inclement weather children must remain indoors (Tudor-Locke et al., 2006). Thus, strategies to increase PA during indoor recess are warranted. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to describe PA levels and intensity of children during indoor recess using PA videos.
Method Participants included 54 children (27 girls), aged 8-12, from one elementary school. Children's indoor recess PA levels were measured with an accelerometer for five consecutive school days. Students engaged in custom dance videos created by dance professionals with extensive experience working with youth.
Analysis/Results Descriptive statistics and t-tests were conducted. Students averaged 39.58 (SD=13.81) steps/minute during the PA videos. On average, 45.70% (SD=11.29) of time was spent in light PA (LPA), while 22.22% (SD=12.72) was spent in moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA) for a total of 67.92% (SD=16.54) of time engaged in LPA or higher. By gender, boys averaged significantly more steps/minute than girls (t(36) = -2.18, p < .05). Additionally, boys spent a significantly higher percentage of time in MVPA than girls (t(36) = -2.50, p < .01).
Conclusions In a 15-minute indoor recess, students averaged 593.70 steps using PA videos. Compared to previous studies reporting outdoor recess (Beighle et al., 2006; Tudor-Locke et al., 2006), these figures are lower. Despite this finding, given the indoor recess environment, these data are encouraging. Specifically, they suggest PA videos are one effective method for increasing elementary children's PA during indoor recesses as an alternative to sedentary activities.