The effectiveness of school-based physical activity interventions on girls' MVPA, sedentary behaviour and physical activity guideline adherence: A Systematic Review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background: Evidence suggests physical activity (PA) levels decline as children age, with levels lower for girls than boys. Consequently, many PA interventions have targeted schools to increase physical activity among children but show varying effects. However, no recent systematic review has assessed their effects specifically on girls’ PA. To address this evidence gap, we conducted a synthesis of studies included in a recent comprehensive Cochrane review of school-based PA interventions, to determine their effect on girls’ PA levels and sedentary time, and proportion of students meeting PA guidelines. Methods: Studies assessing the effect of school-based PA interventions in students aged 6 to 18 years were considered eligible for inclusion in the original review if they: employed a randomised controlled trial design, targeted school students, and objectively assessed student PA (such as moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA)), sedentary time, or the proportion of children meeting PA guidelines across the whole day or school day. Studies from the original review were eligible for this secondary analysis if they reported eligible outcomes separately for girls. Where possible, random-effects meta-analyses were undertaken to estimate pooled effect sizes for primary outcomes. Results: Nineteen of 89 studies from the original review were included. Meta-analysis of 14 studies (11,384 participants) indicated interventions made little to no difference to girls’ minutes of MVPA across the whole day [mean difference: 0.81 minutes/day (95% CI: -0.30, 1.91; I2=50%; low certainty evidence]. Meta-analysis of eight studies (4,811 Participants) found that school-based PA interventions probably decrease girls’ minutes of sedentary behaviour across the whole day [mean difference: -6.73 minutes/day (95% CI: -11.61, -1.85); I2=0% moderate certainty evidence]. One study measured the proportion of students meeting guidelines which found little to no difference [0.65 (95% CI: 0.23, 1.85) very low certainty of evidence] on this outcome. Conclusions: The positive result for sedentary time but not MVPA suggests that school-based PA interventions are beneficial for improving movement of girls, but not intensity of movement. Future research should focus on improving the design of interventions in an attempt to target their impact on increasing the intensity of girls’ PA levels. Such efforts could include those that target girl specific preferences and barriers.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.010 | 0.037 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.012 | 0.015 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.006 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".