A physical activity program for secondary schools works!

What is it about?

Physical Activity 4 Everyone is a school-based physical activity program that was trialled in 5 schools in NSW, Australia. It involves 7 evidenced-informed physical activity practices, such as having equipment available for students at break/recess. The program consists not only of these practices, but also a comprehensive range of strategies to embed these practices. These are referred to as implementation strategies, and they help embed the practices in each school. One example of this is providing prompts to school teachers to embed practices. Further detail about the program is available in the main scientific paper, in the introduction.

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Why is it important?

Results indicated the program increased moderate-to-vigorous physical activity by 7 minutes daily. At the time of writing, it is the only effective secondary school physical activity program globally that used rigorous data collection methods (whole-day accelerometry, randomised controlled trial design). So effective, a further trial has been designed, and this started in 2018(-2020) to scale up from 5 schools in one local health district, to 24 schools across four local health districts. Further results from this trial will be reported separatly. It is conducted in low-socio economic schools - and so benefits those most in need. It is cost-effective (see related paper from Sutherland et al on cost-effectiveness). It reduced weight gain. The ultimate aim of the program is to be the go-to program for secondary school physical activity.