Background/Purpose Recess can provide students with meaningful amounts of physical activity. As recess time decreases to make way for academic time, it is essential that the physical activity levels of students be maximized during recess. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of Ready for Recess: an elementary school intervention designed to increase physical activity during recess.
Method Schools were one of four conditions: recreational equipment, staff training, recreational equipment and staff training, or control.
Analysis/Results Findings suggest these strategies are effective for increasing the physical activity of students, particularly for overweight/obese boys and girls.
Conclusions These findings are particularly encouraging because they provide various cost-effective and feasible strategies to include in recess related policies in specific schools. When creating policies for recess, policy makers need strategies that can be implemented in a variety of schools with minimal interference to the school day and at the lowest cost. Further research to continue to develop strategies that can inform recess policy is warranted.
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