Search results

Objective This study aimed to systematically review and analyse intervention programs in a school context centred on the family, focused on increasing youths' physical activity. Data source The research was carried out in the PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science databases. Study inclusion criteria Studies were included if participants were children or adolescents, focusing on school-based intervention studies with parental involvement and physical activity, sedentary behaviour or physical fitness outcomes. Data extraction The search was performed according to the PRISMA protocol. A total of 416 articles were identified. After being considered for eligibility and duplicates, 22 studies were identified as relevant for inclusion. Data synthesis Sample and intervention characteristics, objective, the role of the family, outcomes measures, main findings regarding the outcomes and risk of bias. Results Ten studies reported improvements in physical activity, 6 in sedentary behaviour and 9 in the components of physical fitness and/or skills related to healthy behaviours and lifestyles. Most of the interventions adopted a multidisciplinary and multi-component approach. Conclusions Most interventions employed a school's multidisciplinary/multi-component approach to promoting physical activity, nutrition, and general education for healthier lifestyle behaviours. The impact of school-based interventions involving families on youth's physical activity levels is still a relatively emerging theme. Further research is needed given the diversity of the intervention's characteristics and the disparity in the results' efficacy.

The scientific literature has shown the beneficial effects of chronic Physical Exercise (PE) on a wide range of tasks that involve high-order functioning. For this reason, the present study aimed to investigate the effects of active breaks on physical fitness and vigilance performance in high school students through eight weeks of physical training. A total of 42 healthy students (age = 16.50 ± 0.59 years; height = 171.08 ± 8.07 cm; weight = 67.10 ± 13.76 kg) from one Andalusian high school (Spain) were assigned for convenience and matched into two groups, a Control Group (CG) and an Active-Break Group (ABG). The ABG performed two active breaks (based on strength and self-loading exercises) during the school day, first at 10:00 a.m. and second at 12:30 p.m. The participants were assessed before and after the training program using the Alpha-Fitness test battery and the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT). Significant differences were observed in the post-training PVT results, compared with the pretraining PVT, showing ABG responding faster than CG. Thus, the presents study demonstrated that eight weeks of physical training affects vigilance performance (compared to CG) and improves the efficiency of vigilance in high school students, contributing to enhancement of quality of education. ; The research was supported by the Consejería de Educación, Cultura y Deportes de Castilla-La Mancha, co-financed with European Union ERDF funds, under Grant number: SBPLY/19/1805001/000147). This work is part of a two-year project entitled "Active Breaks Influence on Attentional Primary School Students".