Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 29, 2026
Breakfast Habits among Schoolchildren in the City of Uruguaiana, Brazil
Published on: July 29, 2020
Promoting Physical Activity With the Out of School Nutrition and Physical Activity (OSNAP) Initiative: A
Angie L Cradock1, Jessica L Barrett1, Catherine M Giles1
1Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts.
Importance:
Millions of children attend after-school programs in the United States. Increasing physical activity levels of program participants could have a broad effect on children's health.
Objective:
To test the effectiveness of the Out of School Nutrition and Physical Activity (OSNAP) Initiative in increasing children's physical activity levels in existing after-school programs.
Design, Setting, And Participants:
Cluster-randomized controlled trial with matched program pairs. Baseline data were collected September 27 through November 12, 2010, with follow-up data collected April 25 through May 27, 2011. The dates of our analysis were March 11, 2014, through August 18, 2015. The setting was 20 after-school programs in Boston, Massachusetts. All children 5 to 12 years old in participating programs were eligible for study inclusion.
Interventions:
Ten programs participated in a series of three 3-hour learning collaborative workshops, with additional optional opportunities for training and technical assistance.
Main Outcomes And Measures:
Change in number of minutes and bouts of moderate to vigorous physical activity, vigorous physical activity, and sedentary activity and change in total accelerometer counts between baseline and follow-up.
Results:
Participants with complete data were 402 racially/ethnically diverse children, with a mean age of 7.7 years. Change in the duration of physical activity opportunities offered to children during program time did not differ between conditions (-1.2 minutes; 95% CI, -14.2 to 12.4 minutes; P = .87). Change in moderate to vigorous physical activity minutes accumulated by children during program time did not differ significantly by intervention status (-1.0; 95% CI, -3.3 to 1.3; P = .40). Total minutes per day of vigorous physical activity (3.2; 95% CI, 1.8-4.7; P < .001), vigorous physical activity minutes in bouts (4.1; 95% CI, 2.7-5.6; P < .001), and total accelerometer counts per day (16,894; 95% CI, 5101-28,686; P = .01) increased significantly during program time among intervention participants compared with control participants.
Conclusions And Relevance:
Although programs participating in the OSNAP Initiative did not allot significantly more time for physical activity, they successfully made existing time more vigorously active for children receiving the intervention.
Trial Registration:
clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT01396473.
Related Concept Videos
01:24Obesity
01:30Community Based Intervention
Foundations of Community Mental Health Programs
Central to the success of community-based interventions is the...
01:14Active Transport
Primary active transporters, like Na+, K+ and -ATPase, directly utilize ATP to move ions across the membrane. These transporters play significant roles in various physiological processes. For instance, Na+, K+ and -ATPase maintain...
01:27Exercise and Muscle Performance
Endurance exercises
Endurance exercises involve running, swimming, or cycling, which require repetitive movements with low force output. When a person engages in endurance exercise, a few noticeable changes occur in their skeletal muscles. For instance, the number of capillaries...
01:26Levels of Health Promotion and Illness Prevention
In primary prevention, actions taken before disease onset prevent the disease from...
01:25Models of Health Promotion and Illness Prevention I
The health belief model (HBM) attempts to predict health-related behavior in specific belief patterns. According to the HBM, a person's...