A supervised exercise program that gets young children running and
playing for an hour before school could make them happier and healthier,
while also jibing with the needs and schedules of parents and school
officials, according to a new study involving two dozen elementary and
middle schools.The results also caution, however, that the benefits may
depend on how often children actually participate.after school activity programmes Physical activity among children in most of the developed world has been on a steep decline for decades.
National
exercise guidelines in the United States recommend that children and
adolescents engage in at least an hour of exercise every day. But by
most estimates, barely 20 percent of young people are that active, and
many scarcely exercise at all. Meanwhile, rates of obesity among
children as young as 2 hover at around 17 percent, according to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Understandably, many
concerned experts have suggested a variety of physical-activity
interventions, from more sports programs to the use of “active” video
games that allow children to move without relinquishing their screens
and joysticks.
But many of these initiatives are expensive,
logistically complex, time consuming or otherwise impractical. So in
2009, a group of mothers in Massachusetts organized a simple,
before-school activity program in their local grade school. They opted
for the before-school start because they hoped to add to the total
amount of time their kids spent moving and not displace existing
physical education classes or after-school sports.
It also struck
many of the working parents as convenient and, apparently, did not lead
to bitter complaints from their children about early rising times. The
original one-hour sessions consisted of a warm-up, running, calisthenics
and rousing group games like tag, led by parent volunteers. The
workouts proved to be so popular that other parents began asking if they
could start a similar program at their children’s schools Today, the
program has gained a formal curriculum, a name and acronym, Build Our
Kids’ Success (BOKS), along with corporate underwriting from the shoe
manufacturer Reebok. (The similarity of the nomenclature is
intentional.)
It also has become one of the world’s most widely
disseminated, free, school-based exercise programs. According to a BOKS
spokeswoman, it is used at more than 3,000 schools worldwide. But
popularity is no guarantee of efficacy. So researchers at Harvard
University and Massachusetts General Hospital, some of whom have
children enrolled in a BOKS program, began to wonder about the
measurable impacts of the exercise.They also were aware that a number of
school districts in Massachusetts had plans to allow BOKS at their
elementary and middle schools during the 2015 or 2016 school years and,
for the new study, which was published this week in the American Journal
of Preventive Medicine, asked if they could piggyback their research
onto the start of those programs. Principals at 24 schools agreed. The
schools included students from a broad spectrum of incomes.
The
researchers then asked those families planning to participate in BOKS,
which is always voluntary, if they and their children would join a
study.Several hundred students in kindergarten through eighth grade and
their parents consented. Other children, who would not be joining the
exercise program, agreed to serve as a control group.The researchers
measured everyone’s heights, weights, body mass indexes and, through
brief psychological surveys, general happiness, vigor and other signs of
well-being. For 12 weeks, the students then played and ran during
before-school exercise. At some schools, the program was offered three
times a week, at others twice.Afterward, the researchers returned and
repeated the testing.At this point, those students who had exercised
before school three times per week had almost all improved their B.M.I.s
and fewer qualified as obese. (Many had gained weight as children
should while they are growing.) They also reported feeling deeper social
connections to their friends and school and a greater happiness and
satisfaction with life. Those students who had exercised twice a week
also said they felt happier and more energetic. But the researchers
found no reductions in their body mass.The students in the control group
had the same B.M.I.s or higher and had no changes to their feelings of
well-being.
The upshot is that a one-hour, before-school exercise
program does seem likely to improve young people’s health and happiness,
says Dr. Elsie Taveras, a professor at Harvard and head of general
pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital, who oversaw the study and
whose children have participated in BOKS. (The experiment was partially
funded by the Reebok Foundation, as well as the National Institutes of
Health and other sources. None of the funders had control of the design
or results, Dr. Taveras says.)
