Are school-based physical activity interventions effective and equitable? A meta-analysis of cluster randomized controlled trials with accelerometer-assessed activity.
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Publication Date
2019-06Journal Title
Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity
ISSN
1467-7881
Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
Volume
20
Issue
6
Pages
859-870
Language
eng
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Physical Medium
Print-Electronic
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Love, R., Adams, J., & Van Sluijs, E. (2019). Are school-based physical activity interventions effective and equitable? A meta-analysis of cluster randomized controlled trials with accelerometer-assessed activity.. Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity, 20 (6), 859-870. https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.12823
Abstract
The prevalence of childhood obesity is increasing at epidemic rates globally, with widening inequalities between advantaged and disadvantaged groups. Despite the promise of schools as a universal context to access and influence all children, the potential of school-based interventions to positively impact children’s physical activity behaviour, and obesity risk, remains uncertain. We searched six electronic databases to February 2017 for cluster randomised trials of school-based physical activity interventions. Following data extraction authors were sent re-analysis requests. For each trial a mean change score from baseline to follow-up was calculated for daily minutes of accelerometer-assessed MVPA, for the main effect, by gender, and by SEP. Twenty-five trials met the inclusion criteria; seventeen trials provided relevant data for inclusion in the meta-analyses. The pooled main effect for daily minutes of MVPA was non-existent and non-significant. There was no evidence of differential effectiveness by gender or SEP. This review provides the strongest evidence to date that current school-based efforts do not positively impact young people’s physical activity across the full day, with no difference in effect across gender and SEP. Further assessment and maximization of implementation fidelity is required before it can be concluded that these interventions have no contribution to make.
Keywords
Humans, Exercise, Cluster Analysis, Socioeconomic Factors, Physical Education and Training, Schools, Adolescent, Child, Female, Male, Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic, Health Status Disparities, Accelerometry, Pediatric Obesity
Sponsorship
Wellcome Trust (087636/Z/08/Z)
ESRC (ES/G007462/1)
MRC (MC_UU_12015/7)
MRC (MR/K023187/1)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.12823
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/288463