Physical Activity Across the Curriculum (PAAC): a randomized controlled trial to promote physical activity and diminish overweight and obesity in elementary school children

By J. Donnelly, J. L. Greene, C. Gibson, Bryan K. Smith, R. Washburn, D. Sullivan, K. DuBose, M. Mayo, K. Schmelzle, J. Ryan and 2 more. Preventive Medicine, 2009

632 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Objective Physical Activity Across the Curriculum (PAAC) was a three-year cluster randomized controlled trial to promote physical activity and diminish increases in overweight and obesity in elementary school children. Methods Twenty-four elementary schools were cluster randomized to the PAAC intervention or served as control. All children in grades two and three were followed to grades four and five. PAAC promoted 90 minutes/wk of moderate to vigorous intensity physically active academic lessons delivered by classroom teachers. BMI was the primary outcome, daily PA and academic achievement were secondary outcomes. Results The three-year change in BMI for PAAC was 2.0 ± 1.9 and control 1.9 ± 1.9, respectively (NS). However, change in BMI from baseline to three years was significantly influenced by exposure to PAAC. Schools with ≥75 minutes of PAAC/wk showed significantly less increase in BMI at three years compared to schools that had <75 minutes of PAAC (1.8 ± 1.8 vs. 2.4 ± 2.0, p=0.02). PAAC schools had significantly greater changes in daily PA and academic achievement scores. Conclusions The PAAC approach may promote daily PA and academic achievement in elementary school children. Additionally, 75 minutes of PAAC activities may attenuate increases in BMI.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

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Citations in the corpus

Physical Activity, Self-Regulation, and Early Academic Achievement in Preschool Children (2014, background): “Experimental training studies with elementary and middle school students have demonstrated that children who participate in more vigorous activity achieve higher grades (Donnelly et al., 2009; Donnelly & Lambourne, 2011) and math achievement (C. L. Davis et al., 2011).”
Physical Activity, Fitness, Cognitive Function, and Academic Achievement in Children: A Systematic Review. (2016, methodology): “Physical Activity Intervention Studies: This section will describe the 14 studies that examined a PA intervention, with five studies finding clear improvements (2, 32, 58, 72, 88), three studies finding improvements in some aspects of academic achievement or some students but not others (73, 120, 13”
Intervention integrating physical activity with math: Math performance, perceived competence, and need satisfaction† (2017, methodology): “The largest longitudinal classroom-based PA intervention (Donnelly et al., 2009) involved 11 intervention schools (N = 2505) and 11 control schools (N = 2400) that were followed over 3 years (starting at grade 2 and 3, up to grade 4 and 5).”
Effect of classroom-based physical activity interventions on academic and physical activity outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis (2017, background): “Across studies there was a 2% to 16% increase in moderate- to vigorous- intensity physical activity during intervention lessons, [27, 28, 45, 60, 63], and 2% to 12% increase in school day moderate- to vigorous- intensity physical activity [27, 28, 58].”
Exercise and children's cognition: The role of exercise characteristics and a place for metacognition (2015, methodology): “Modified versions of the TAKE 10! program have been incorporated into several large-scale studies.(41,42) Kibbe et al.”