Youth Physical Activity and Enjoyment during Semi-Structured versus Unstructured School Recess

The obesity epidemic is affecting children of all ages including young children and adolescents and when obesity occurs during adolescence, it tends to persist into adulthood. The prevalence of physical inactivity among school-aged children has contributed to the substantial rise in overweight and obesity.

Physical activity throughout the school day may help reduce the risk of childhood obesity. Recess refers to a break from doing something, like work or school. Daily recess has been shown to play a significant role in increasing PA as well as increasing learning, productivity, concentration, and social development. Also, research has found that structured recess can be a novel approach to provide new PA choices at recess. In this study, the authors aimed to compare the physical activity and enjoyment of urban school children during traditional unstructured recess and semi-structured recess.

The sample for this study consisted of 165 elementary school children (n = 89 males) in the Southwestern United States. Students were recruited via PE class while at school. They wore a NL-1000 piezoelectric accelerometer during their 15-minute lunch recess and participated in both their traditional unstructured (no structure and no equipment) recess and semi-structured (organized games and equipment) recess. An enjoyment scale was completed after both types of recess formats. Accelerometer data were examined to determine the mean and standard deviation for step counts and minutes spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) during unstructured and semi-structured recess. Questionnaire data was used to determine PA enjoyment during unstructured and semi-structured recess. Analyses were conducted using IBM Statistics SPSS 21.0 software.

The results revealed that during unstructured recess, children accumulated 1028 ± 356 steps and 4.59 ± 2.2 minutes of MVPA compared to 1156 ± 434 steps and 5.44 ± 2.76 minutes of MVPA during semi-structured recess. Paired sample t-tests revealed that children took significantly more steps (t = −4.98; p < 0.001) and MVPA (t = −5.940; p < 0.001) during semi-structured recess. No significant differences were found for enjoyment (p = 0.847) between recesses.

In conclusion, this study suggests that semi-structured recess represents a feasible and viable intervention for schools to implement for promoting PA. The findings indicate that a semi-structured recess environment may create more PA among children while at school. Implementing semi-structured recess is an inexpensive, simple way to increase children’s PA for schools during lunch recess so they can accumulate more minutes of daily recommended MVPA without causing a negative effect on enjoyment. Further research is necessary to determine the effectiveness of semi-structured recess on PA, MVPA, and recess enjoyment on children.

Article by Jessyka N. Larson, et al, from University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.

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