Review and special article
Physical Activity During School Recess: A Systematic Review

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Context

Interest has increased in examining the physical activity levels of young people during school recess. Identifying correlates of their recess physical activity behaviors is timely, and would inform school-based physical activity programming and intervention development. The review examined the correlates of children's and adolescent's physical activity during school recess periods.

Evidence acquisition

A systematic search of six electronic databases, reference lists, and personal archives identified 53 studies (47 focused on children) published between January 1990 and April 2011 that met the inclusion criteria. Data were analyzed in 2011. Correlates were categorized using the social–ecological framework.

Evidence synthesis

Forty-four variables were identified across the four levels of the social–ecological framework, although few correlates were studied repeatedly at each level. Positive associations were found of overall facility provision, unfixed equipment, and perceived encouragement with recess physical activity. Results revealed that boys were more active than girls.

Conclusions

Providing access to school facilities, providing unfixed equipment, and identifying ways to promote encouragement for physical activity have the potential to inform strategies to increase physical activity levels during recess periods.

Section snippets

Context

Physical activity is positively associated with psychological well-being, bone health, and motor skill development and negatively associated with waist circumference and clustering of cardiovascular disease risk factors.1, 2, 3, 4 However, as children and adolescents may not be engaging in sufficient physical activity to benefit their health,1 the promotion of physical activity is a public health priority.5

Children and adolescents spend a substantial proportion of their waking hours at school.

Evidence Acquisition

A systematic literature search of papers was conducted in six electronic databases (PubMed, SportsDiscus, Web of Science, ProQuest, Cochrane, and Scopus). Search strategies for the various databases included the following key words in three main areas: population (child, infant, youth, adolescent); school (school, primary, elementary, middle school, high school, secondary school); and recess (breaktime, break time, school recess, recess, playtime, lunchtime, free play). Only papers that had

Evidence Synthesis

Of the 2718 studies identified, 53 papers were included in the review (Figure 1). The majority of studies were cross-sectional (n=42); focused on children (n=47); and reported MVPA as the outcome variable (n=26). Only one study15 included children and adolescents and reported the results separately. Eight studies used self-report measures to assess physical activity, with seven and five of these reporting the validity and/or reliability of the measures used, respectively. Because of the limited

Discussion

This review provides evidence for factors to include in a social–ecological model of recess physical activity behavior but also highlights areas lacking evidence. Forty-four variables were identified across the four levels of the framework, although only 36% had been investigated four or more times. Only three studies38, 46, 48 examined correlates across all levels of the model simultaneously. The majority of variables identified were at the individual and physical environmental levels of the

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