Before-School Running/Walking Club: Effects on Elementary Students' Physical Activity

Background/Purpose: Most American youth do not meet the national PA recommendations (Troiano et al., 2008). Multifaceted, school-based approaches are a promising strategy to promote youth PA participation. One such approach, which served as this study’s conceptual framework, is the Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program (CSPAP; CDC, 2013). This study focused on a before-school program, one of the least studied student-related CSPAP aspects, and examined: (a) how much PA (i.e., steps and moderate-to-vigorous PA [MVPA] time) elementary school children received during a before-school running/walking club and the school day, and (b) whether children compensated for the PA received in the before-school running/walking club by being less active during the school day (excluding before-school program PA).

Method: This study employed a two-phase experimental design with a baseline phase (two weeks) and an alternating treatments phase (five weeks). The study was first conducted at a private school and then replicated at a public school. Participants (N=88) were third and fourth grade children from two schools in the Southwestern US (School A: private; N=39; female=25; M_BMI=16.97 kg/m²) (School B=public; N=49; female=20; M_BMI=18.72 kg/m²). The before-school program involved a running/walking club that took place twice each week (School A: 20 minutes; School B: 15 minutes). PA was monitored using the New Lifestyles NL-1000 pedometer that uses a mechanism similar to accelerometers and has been shown to provide good estimates of PA in children (Hart et al., 2011; McMinn et al., 2010). 

Analysis/Results: Data analysis included descriptive statistics and multilevel modeling (Level 1: day-to-day observations, Level 2: individual students). Descriptive statistics showed that children accumulated substantial amounts of PA within the before-school programs (School A: M_steps=1731, M_MVPAtime=10:02 minutes; School B: M_steps=1502 , M_MVPAtime=8:30 minutes) and the PA accumulated within both programs met/exceeded the standard of 50% of before-school program time spent in MVPA (NASPE, 2012). Multilevel analysis results showed that, on average, School A children did not compensate by decreasing their school-day PA on days they attended the before-school program. School B children, on average, accumulated significantly more school-day PA on days they attended the before-school program (331.46 steps, SE=72, p<.001; 01:16 MVPA minutes, SE=00:24, p<.001), although significant individual differences were also identified.  

Conclusions: This study is significant because it shows that before-school programs, as part of CSPAPs, can be effective in increasing children’s PA and helping them meet the daily PA recommendations without resulting in decreased school-day PA and without taking time away from academics.