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Abstract
Objectives We examined whether daily physical activity (PA) during compulsory school encourages children to be more physically active during the intervention and 4 years after termination of the programme.
Methods This prospective controlled intervention study followed the same 124 children (81 children in an intervention group and 43 controls) aged 7.7±0.6 (mean±SD) during a 7-year PA intervention and 4 years after the intervention when the children were 18.7±0.3 years old. The intervention included daily school physical education (PE) (200 min/week), whereas the controls continued with the Swedish standard of 60 min/week. Using a questionnaire, we gathered data about total PA, leisure time PA and sedentary activities (SA). Group comparisons are adjusted for age and gender, and data are provided as means with 95% CIs.
Results At baseline, we found similar duration of PA and SA between groups. After a mean of 7 years with intervention, the intervention group was more physically active than the controls (+4.5 (2.9 to 6.0) hours/week), whereas SA was similar (+0.6 (−2.5 to 3.9) hours/week). Four years beyond the intervention, the intervention group was still more physically active than the controls (2.7 (0.8 to 4.7) hours/week), and SA was still similar (−3.9 (−9.7 to 1.7) hours/week).
Conclusions Intervention with daily school PE throughout compulsory school is associated with higher duration of PA not only during the intervention but also 4 years after termination of the programme.
- children
- physical activity
- physical education
- sedentary activity
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Footnotes
Contributors AL: provided extensive work on cleaning, analysing and interpreting the data; and drafted and revised the paper. BER: contributed to interpretation of data for the work; revised it critically and provided important intellectual content; and provided final approval of the version to be published. J-ÅN: substantial contributions to the statistical design and analysis used in this work; revised the work and provided valuable, intellectual important content; and provided final approval of the version to be published. CK: collected the data and contributed to the interpretation of the work and revised it for final approval. MKK: collection of data and substantial contributions to gaining, analysis and interpretation of the data of the work and revising the draft several times, and provided intellectual content to it. All authors have given an agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Funding Financial support was received from the Centre for Athletic Research, Skåne Regional Foundations, ALF Foundations and FoUU Foundations.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent Parental/guardian consent obtained.
Ethical approval The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Lund University, Sweden (LU 453-98; 1998-09-15), registered as clinical trial (ClinicalTrials.gov. NCT00633828) and conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement No additional data are available.