The Role of School in Helping Children and Adolescents Reach the Physical Activity Recommendations: The UP&DOWN Study

The aims were to: (1) examine the levels of physical activity (PA) during different time periods (ie, daily PA, school hour PA, recess PA, physical education classes [PEC] PA) in children and adolescents; and (2) identify the rate of compliance with the specific PA recommendations for these time periods.

The participants were 1925 (940 girls) children and adolescents from 40 Spanish schools. Hip-worn accelerometers were used to assess PA during different time periods.

Boys and children were more physically active and had a greater percentage meeting the daily PA recommendation and the school-based PA recommendation than girls and adolescents, respectively. Compliance with daily PA recommendation was markedly higher than that with the school-based PA recommendation, regardless of sex and age groups (ie, 80.4% vs 24.1% for daily and school-based PA recommendations, respectively, in child boys). A very low percentage (ie, 9.7% and 1.2% of child boys with almost 50% of moderate-to-vigorous PA during recess and PEC, respectively) of students reached the recommended PA levels for recess and PEC.

Physical activity levels during school hours, recess, and PEC in children and adolescents are very low. Promoting PA in school settings is essential, especially in girls and adolescents.