Impact of NFL PLAY 60 Programming on Elementary School Children's Body Mass Index and Aerobic Capacity: The NFL PLAY 60 FitnessGram Partnership Project

US School-Based Physical Fitness Assessments and Data Dissemination

BACKGROUND

Low physical fitness (PF) levels during childhood affect healthy growth and development, and increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases. Physical education standards exist for nearly all states in the United States, but evaluation of PF in youth has yet to be systematic, reproducible, and harmonized. The purpose of this project was to describe publicly available data of school-based PF testing (SB-PFT).

METHODS

A list of state-mandated SB-PFT programs published by SHAPE 2016 was confirmed by contacting appropriate authorities. SB-PFT data were obtained through each state's department of education.

RESULTS

Sixteen states mandate SB-PFT, with 10 states providing publicly available data; 92% to 100% of states perform the pacer/mile, curl-up, and push-up; 54.2% to 78.5% of elementary and 44% to 66.5% of high-school youth are in the "healthy fitness zone" for aerobic capacity.

CONCLUSIONS

SB-PFT provided PF data in children across the United States. The variability and inconsistency in reporting and in the values, however, raises questions about the current status of SB-PFT data and its utility in assessing PF in children. The critical nature of PF assessments is highlighted in the current COVID-19 pandemic, during which physical education has been curtailed, and emerging data demonstrate worsening of the already low levels of PF in youth.

Self-Regulations for Educators Questionnaire (SREQ) for implementation programming

The adoption and dissemination of evidence-based programs is predicated on multiple factors, including the degree to which key stakeholders are motivated to implement program best practices. The present study focuses on the development of indicators that capture motivations of teachers to adopt school wellness programming since personal motivations are central to achieving sustainable impacts in these settings. The study specifically describes the measurement development and validation of the Self-Regulations for Educators Questionnaire (SREQ), designed to measure educators’ autonomous and controlled motivation for adopting evidence-based programming in their schools. A naturalistic design to study motivation to adopt aspects of NFL PLAY60 programming through the NFL PLAY60 FitnessGram Partnership Project was used. A total of 1,106 teachers completed the SREQ online. Internal validity was assessed through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and predictive validity using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results supported the two-factor solution with separate items capturing aspects of autonomous and controlled motivation. Both factors had good internal reliability and the item-total correlation coefficients were above 0.40 for both factors. The results also supported the predictive validity as autonomous motivation positively predicted the level of overall engagement, teaching effectiveness, fitness testing reports sent home, and completion of fitness testing with students (p < .05). Controlled motivation positively predicted whether the teachers conducted fitness testing and the engagement of Play 60 Challenge (p < .05). Findings suggest that the SREQ displays a number of psychometric characteristics that make the instrument useful for examining motivation of providers to implement evidence-based best practices.

Three-Year Follow-Up of the POIBA Intervention on Childhood Obesity: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Childhood obesity has increased worldwide over the past four decades. This quasi-experimental study aimed to assess the effectiveness of a multicomponent and multilevel school-based intervention (POIBA) at 3 years of follow-up. The nutrition intervention focused on food groups, food pyramid, nutrients, portions, and balanced menus. In total, 3624 children participated in the study. Anthropometric measurements and information on food frequency and behavior, physical activity, and daily screen use were collected in the intervention (IG) and comparison group (CG). Positive unadjusted changes toward adherence to recommendations were found for water, meat, sweets, and fried potato consumption, proper breakfast, not having dinner in front of the TV, out-of-school physical activity, and daily screen use. Three scores were used to calculate the proportion of children making more than one change to improve healthy habits regarding physical activity (global Activity score), nutrition (global Nutrition score), and both (global score). Students exposed to the intervention had a significantly better global Activity score (16.2% IG vs. 11.9% CG; p = 0.012) and Global score (63.9% IG vs. 58.5% CG; p = 0.025). Intervention effects on obesity incidence at 3-year follow-up lost significance but maintained the positive trend. In conclusion, school-based interventions including a family component could be useful to address the childhood obesity problem.

A student-centered intervention program to educate and retain knowledge in stroke education and healthy habits

The goal of the stroke intervention programs was to increase knowledge in stroke awareness and healthy habits. Most of the existing school-based didactic stroke education intervention programs have not been very effective in improving learned information. We developed a student-centered or active learning educational pedagogy to improve the retention of learned knowledge on stroke issues and healthy habits. Middle school students, ages of 11 to 14 years attending a public school in the stroke belt were recruited to participate in an intervention program to raise stroke awareness and promote healthy habit. The impact of the intervention program on students' knowledge post-test and three weeks following the intervention was evaluated. Middle school students at all grade levels were aware of the cardinal symptoms of stroke, demonstrated basic knowledge of the salty foods in the post-test, and knowledge of learned information increased significantly after three weeks post intervention. The three weeks follow-up test revealed a significant increase in stroke knowledge among the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades [F (2,109) = 134.65, P = 0.001]. Post-hoc pair-wise comparisons analysis revealed a significant difference (P < 0.05) between the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. In an active learning or a student-centered stroke and healthy life style educational program, middle school students perceived the intervention program as fun, instead of primarily educational and this allowed the learned information to be retained even three weeks after the intervention.

Physical education teachers' and principals' perspectives on the use of FitnessGram

Objectives:

FitnessGram is commonly used to measure physical fitness and improve physical activity and health in youth. However, little is known about its use for informing physical activity and health promotion policy within schools and school districts, especially from the perspective of key decision-makers like principals. Therefore, this study examined physical education teachers’ and principals’ perceptions of FitnessGram use and its relationship with school and district efforts to promote physical activity.

Methods:

Principal and physical education teacher surveys were developed, converted to an online format, and then emailed along with a project description and instructions to all Delaware public and charter school physical education teachers (N = 183) and principals (N = 193) with a valid email.

Results:

Completed surveys were received from 35.5% of the teachers and 21.2% of the principals. All teachers and 95.1% of the principals reported their school used FitnessGram the past academic year. FitnessGram was significantly more likely to be used if FitnessGram results better aligned with school/district policies (r = 0.39) and were considered important in the school’s decision-making process (r = 0.53). Significantly more principals than teachers said that FitnessGram results were important in their school’s decision-making process and that FitnessGram results were used to inform policy-/decision-making.

Conclusion:

Use of FitnessGram was correlated with how well it related to school/district policy. Unfortunately, most of the physical education teachers and principals did not think FitnessGram was adequately integrated into the policy-/decision-making process.