Compliance With Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviour and Sleep Recommendations in Children Aged 5-13 Years: A...

Several regions have published 24-h Movement Guidelines recommending durations of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), recreational screen time (ST) and sleep. This study aimed to investigate the global prevalence of school-aged children meeting the individual and combined recommendations of the 24-h Movement Guidelines.

Six databases were initially searched from 2016 to 2025 and further updated in May 2026. This review included studies reporting adherence rates to the 24-h Movement Guidelines, including none, individual (MVPA, ST, sleep), combined (MVPA&ST, MVPA&sleep, ST&sleep) and all three guidelines among children aged 5-13 years. A random-effects model was used to pool prevalence rates across studies.

Twenty-nine studies involving 83 396 school-aged children were included in the analysis, and only 10.2% met all three 24-h Movement Guidelines. Among individual and combined guidelines, adherence was the lowest for the MVPA&ST guideline (6.0%), followed by MVPA (7.9%), all three guidelines (10.2%) and MVPA&sleep (10.2%) guideline.

Overall adherence to the 24-h Movement Guidelines among school-aged children is low, with the lower compliance for MVPA&ST guideline and MVPA guideline. Targeted interventions to increase MVPA may improve overall compliance.