Physical Education and Recess Contributions to 6th Graders' Physical Activity

Background/Purpose: Regular participation in physical activity (PA) is linked to many positive health benefits in youth. Due to these benefits, there is a need to determine how much PA youth accumulate in PE and other settings.  This, in turn, will aid the development of PA programs in schools. Schools have been identified as an ideal setting to promote and engage students in PA. Therefore it is important to examine the school setting and its contribution to student PA participation. It is suggested that elementary age youth should accumulate somewhere between 11,000 and 13,000 steps per day to receive the health benefits offered through PA participation. The purpose of this study was two-fold. First, this study examined the percentage of the daily threshold (12,000 steps) PE class and structured recess contribute to 6th grade students’ overall daily PA. This study also examined the relationships between gender, physical activity outside of school (PAQ-C), body mass index (BMI) and steps during both recess and PE.

Method:   A total of 138 6^th grade students, aged 11-13 years old, enrolled in one elementary school in the Midwest participated. Students completed the PA Questionnaire for Older Children (PAQ-C) which assesses PA from the last 7 days, and wore a pedometer to measure steps taken for 6 consecutive PE classes and structured recess sessions. Additionally students’ body mass index (BMI) percentiles were calculated.

Analysis/Results:   Boys took more steps during PE and recess than girls (approximately 30% more), and reported marginally higher PAQ-C scores. The overall contribution of recess and PE to the daily step goal ranged from 7.1% to 9.6% of the target step count of 12,000. All three PA variables were positively correlated with one another (all p < 0.05) and children who took more steps during recess and PE tended to have lower BMI percentiles (both p < 0.05). However, when all three variables were entered into the multiple linear regression model simultaneously, only steps taken during PE was predictive of BMI percentile (total model r² = 0.145, p = 0.001).

Conclusions: Results suggest that PE and recess at this school contributed a low percentage of steps to students’ overall target step count goal. Additionally, students who are more active in PE and recess tended to have lower BMI’s. However, only steps in PE was predictive of BMI percentile when considered dependently. Further research is needed to explore PA interventions in schools to increase PA.