Examining relationships between U.S. children's physical activity levels during recess, school days, and weekend days

Physical activity opportunities, such as recess, in educational settings are vital yet only a handful of states have policies in place to ensure daily minimum recess allotment. We aim to investigate associations between physical activity during recess and other time periods to better understand the extent to which recess physical activity is related to physical activity throughout the week.

Children K-5th grade were from four schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. Children wore accelerometers on their waist to assess physical activity across the week. Chi-square and t-tests or Wilcoxon rank-sum tests and multi-level mixed effects generalized linear regression were used for non-normally distributed variables and accounting for repeated observations. Data collection took place from Spring 2023 through Spring 2024 and included three semesters.

Children (n = 135, 51.9 % girls) had a median of 37.0 min of MVPA on both weekdays and weekend days. Children spent 16.7 % of recess in MVPA equaling 26.8 % of their total school MVPA, and 15.5 % of weekday MVPA. Children meeting physical activity guidelines, especially boys, had higher levels of MVPA across all time periods.

Recess plays a crucial role in overall physical activity, with recess MVPA showing a positive correlation with physical activity across all time periods. Further research is needed examining the effects of changes in recess policies and interventions to increase recess MVPA, which may lead to increases in children's overall physical activity.