The Impact of a Global Pandemic on Young Adult Sedentary Behavior and Physical Activity.

Introduction: The novel COVID-19 disease detected in 2019 widely affected individuals' social movements, likely disrupting the ability to participate in leisure-related physical activity. Because of this, participation in sedentary behavior is thought to have increased. The purpose of this study was to determine how the COVID-19 pandemic affected U.

Feasibility of utilizing gamified learning as a motivational strategy for promoting physical activity participation and healthy eating among college students.

Emerging adulthood is a developmental stage influenced by the regularity of healthy behaviors. Gamification is the motivational strategy using virtual rewards and social comparison. This study aimed to explore the feasibility and proof of concept of utilizing digital badges, leaderboards, and quests as gamified learning in a health course.

ACTIVE YOU: Teacher Attributes and Attitudes Predicting Physical Activity Promotion.

Background: Based on the Health Belief Model, this study examined preservice teacher attributes and attitudes toward providing physical activity opportunities for children in school.

Methods: A quasi-experimental design was used to collect proof of concept and feasibility data for the ACTIVE YOU intervention as part of teacher education.

Conclusions: Examination of a diverse sample of preservice teachers during their fieldwork revealed that those who engage in healthy behaviors and had positive attitudes toward physical activity in schools are more likely to take action and promote physical activity for their students.

Preschoolers' executive functions following indoor and outdoor free play.

Background: Children's executive functions develop rapidly during the preschool years and are critical for attending to lessons and meeting classroom expectations. Engaging in periods of outdoor play that have lower regulatory requirements and that provide opportunities for physical activity may help children maintain control over their behavior when they are back in settings with higher regulatory requirements. However, little work has formally examined this proposition in early childhood.

How Elementary In-School Play Opportunities Relate to Academic Achievement and Social-Emotional Well-Being: Systematic Review.

Background: Play is essential for child growth and development, and may have academic and social-emotional implications. To understand the relationship between in-school play opportunities and academic achievement (AA) and social-emotional well-being among elementary school students, a systematic review of the current in-school play literature was conducted.

Methods: Keywords were input across 7 search engines.

Total Play Time Needed for Preschoolers to Reach Recommended Amount of Non-Sedentary Activity.

Health guidelines suggest that caregivers provide preschoolers with opportunities to be physically active for 3 h per day (roughly 15 min per waking hour), but because children are not continuously active, it is unclear what amount of time is needed to reach this goal. This naturalistic study enrolled 67 children ( = 4.5 years, 46% female) who wore accelerometers to measure their activity during indoor and outdoor free -play ( = 315,061 s).

Measuring children's behavioral regulation in the preschool classroom: An objective, sensor-based approach.

Children's abilities to regulate their behaviors are critical for learning and development, yet researchers lack an objective, precise method for assessing children's behavioral regulation in their everyday environments such as their classrooms. This study tested a sensor-based approach to assess preschool children's behavioral regulation objectively, precisely, and naturalistically. Children wore accelerometer devices as they engaged in center-based play in their preschool classrooms for roughly 45 min (N = 50 children, 48% female, mean age = 4.

Development of a School-Based Physical Activity Intervention Using an Integrated Approach: Project SMART.

Physical activity (PA) is a health-protective factor with multiple benefits for school-age children, yet only 22% of children and adolescents living in the United States (United States) accrue the recommended amount of moderate to vigorous PA. Given the prevalence of insufficient PA among children, promoting and providing PA opportunities during the school day, especially when integrated into the curriculum and linked to the learning standards, is essential for children. The purpose of this paper is to describe the procedure for the development of a school-based PA program using an integrated approach through the modified intervention mapping protocol (IMP).

A Pilot Study of a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program in Elementary Schools: Be a Champion!

Objective: In the present study, we sought to determine if a comprehensive school physical activity program (CSPAP) delivered using the Be a Champion! (BAC) framework was effective in increasing moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and decreasing sedentary time in elementary school youth.

Methods: We implemented a CSPAP in 3 elementary schools to determine its effectiveness to youth behaviors compared to 2 control schools. Youth physical activity was assessed via accelerometry in spring 2015 and spring 2016 during school hours on school days.

Sedentary Behaviors, Sleep, and Health-related Quality of Life in Middle-aged Adults.

In this study, we examined the associations of various sedentary behaviors (SB) to health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and the possible mediating role of sleep quality in these relationships. Participants were 363 middle-aged adults (Mage = 44.25, SD = 4.

Multi-modal data collection for measuring health, behavior, and living environment of large-scale participant cohorts.

Background: As mobile technologies become ever more sensor-rich, portable, and ubiquitous, data captured by smart devices are lending rich insights into users' daily lives with unprecedented comprehensiveness and ecological validity. A number of human-subject studies have been conducted to examine the use of mobile sensing to uncover individual behavioral patterns and health outcomes, yet minimal attention has been placed on measuring living environments together with other human-centered sensing data. Moreover, the participant sample size in most existing studies falls well below a few hundred, leaving questions open about the reliability of findings on the relations between mobile sensing signals and human outcomes.

Essential Components of Physical Education: Policy and Environment.

: Physical education policies provide guidance and accountability to develop quality programs that increase physical literacy. The purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review of physical education policy research to explore its effects on the school environment and programming as an essential component of physical education. : Using the PRISMA guidelines of identify, screen, determine eligibility, and include, studies were extracted from four different databases, using search terms related to the essential physical education component of policy and environment.

Effects of Gamification on Behavioral Change in Education: A Meta-Analysis.

Background: Gamified reward systems, such as providing digital badges earned for specific accomplishments, are related to student engagement in educational settings. The purpose of this study was to conduct a meta-analytic review to quantify the effects of gamified interventions on student behavioral change.

Methods: A meta-analysis was performed using the following databases: The Academic Search Complete, Communication & Mass Media Complete, Education Source, ERIC, Library Information Science & Technology Abstracts, and PsycINFO.

Cross-Sectional Study Using Virtual Reality to Measure Cognition.

Dual-task research is limited in its transferability to authentic contexts because laboratory conditions do not replicate real-world physical activity and decision-making scenarios. Creating valid, reliable methodologies to assess physiological and behavioral responses under varying physical and cognitive demands using virtual reality (VR) environment addresses this limitation. This study determined the feasibility of using VR to investigate the effects of dual-tasking on healthy young adults' cognitive performance.

Presidential youth fitness program implementation: An antecedent to organizational change.

Introduction: Grounded in organizational change theory, the purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of the Presidential Youth Fitness Program (PYFP) and its association with healthy cultures within schools.

Methods: Using a qualitative approach, data were collected through interviews, site visits and artifacts across 374 schools. An explanatory collective case study approach was used to identify key events related to implementation.

The differential relationship of an afterschool physical activity intervention on brain function and cognition in children with obesity and their normal weight peers.

Background: Physical activity (PA) is beneficial for cognitive and brain health during preadolescence. Given that childhood obesity (OB) is a public health concern, investigating this effect in children with OB is an important societal consideration.

Objectives: To identify the effects of weight status and PA on neuroelectric indices of executive function in preadolescence.

The Importance of Providing Opportunities for Health Behaviors during the School Day.

Today, children are less active than previous generations leading to an increased prevalence of morbidity associated with physical inactivity. Globally, full-day preschool is rapidly becoming the norm. Thus, the amount of time that a child spends outside the home is an opportunity for schools and teachers to educate children about the importance of participating in physical activity and making healthy eating choices.

Brain Network Modularity Predicts Improvements in Cognitive and Scholastic Performance in Children Involved in a Physical Activity Intervention.

: Brain network modularity is a principle that quantifies the degree to which functional brain networks are divided into subnetworks. Higher modularity reflects a greater number of within-module connections and fewer connections between modules, and a highly modular brain is often interpreted as a brain that contains highly specialized brain networks with less integration between networks. Recent work in younger and older adults has demonstrated that individual differences in brain network modularity at baseline can predict improvements in performance after cognitive and physical interventions.

Greater childhood cardiorespiratory fitness is associated with better top-down cognitive control: A midfrontal theta oscillation study.

The aim of the current study was to examine the association between cardiorespiratory fitness and electroencephalogram-based neural oscillations, using midfrontal theta, during an inhibitory control task in children. One-hundred seventy-one school-aged children (mean age = 8.9 ± 0.

Implementation evaluation of a professional development program for comprehensive school physical activity leaders.

The purpose of this study was to conduct an implementation monitoring evaluation of a yearlong comprehensive school physical activity program (CSPAP) professional development program across eight multi-state physical education (PE) teacher cohorts. Mixed-method data were collected during a three-year implementation period via workshop attendance sheets and evaluations, post-workshop implementation plans and artifacts, and follow-up phone interviews to enumerate and evaluate the program's process of recruitment, reach, dose delivered, dose received, fidelity, and context. Recruitment strategies reached a total of 234 PE teacher attendees across eight workshops, with 77 PE teachers (primarily female, elementary, public school teachers) completing all program requirements.

Development of the Fitness Education Index: A Scale of Organizational Level Capacity.

: Fitness education is essential for children's health, but determining the effectiveness of instruction related to health-related fitness is difficult. The present study developed and confirmed the validity of a 20-item scale, adapted from the School Health Index (Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention [CDC], 2014), to evaluate the success of fitness education portion of the Presidential Youth Fitness Program (PYFP) across a sample of 785 teachers. : The initial subset (n = 373) represented 353 schools and was used for conducting an exploratory factor analysis.

Physical Activity Increases White Matter Microstructure in Children.

Children are becoming increasingly inactive, unfit, and overweight, yet there is relatively little causal evidence regarding the effects of physical activity on brain health during childhood. The present study examined the effects of an after-school physical activity program (FITKids2) on the microstructure of white matter tracts in 7- to 9-year-old children. We measured the microstructural properties of white matter via diffusion tensor imaging in 143 children before and after random assignment to either a 9-month after-school physical activity program ( = 76, mean age = 8.