Physical education is one of the few remaining opportunities for youth to accumulate physical activity while at school. Physical activity monitors (i.e. pedometers and accelerometers) have become increasingly utilized by teachers to provide feedback and assess students during class. To date, very little is known about expected values (steps/MVPA) across various fitness and sport activities taught during physical education. Therefore, the purpose of this project was to determine the daily physical activity accumulated by middle school youth by the type of activity (i.e. sport skill, sport game, fitness, etc.) being taught.
Method:
279 7th and 8th grade youth from an urban middle school in the Southwest US wore the NL-1000 piezoelectric pedometer for 122 days of physical education classes during the 2013-2014 academic year. Physical education classes averaged 40 minutes in length and included a variety of team, lifetime, and individual sports, as well as regular fitness days. Lessons included a brief warm-up before beginning the planned activities for the day.
Analysis/Results:
Overall, youth averaged 1760 steps and 9.3 minutes of MVPA per physical education lesson. Youth were most active on physical fitness days; 2116 steps and 11.7 minutes of MVPA followed by game days (1410 steps; 6.9 minutes MVPA) and skill development days (1247 steps; 5.7 minutes MVPA).
Conclusions:
On average youth spent approximately 25% of class time engaged in MVPA falling well short of the recommended 50% of class time. Fitness activities provided the greatest amount of activity for youth. Greater emphasis on maximizing MVPA is recommended.