Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which a sport education season of fitness could provide students with recommended levels of in-class moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) while also increasing students' fitness knowledge and fitness achievement. Method: One hundred and sixty-six 5th-grade students (76…

Purpose: Identification of factors that relate to physical activity behavior in children at higher risk for weight problems--namely, children with obese parents--is key to informing the development of effective interventions to promote physical activity and reduce obesity. The purpose of our study was to examine children's perceptions of parental…

Childhood obesity and its repercussions will be one of the most serious public health challenges of the 21st century. Promoting physical activity and preventing the decline of children's fitness and the increase of childhood obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease therefore need to be a high priority. So far, besides a few large-scale…

Physical activity (PA) promotion for youth has long been thought of as a public health issue. However, with increases in diseases associated with a sedentary lifestyle and the known benefits of PA, increasing the PA levels of children and adolescents has become a major public health concern. To this end, numerous organizations are calling on…

With a specific agenda of creating a fun activity that emphasized teamwork, cooperation, and sportsmanship, Mario Demers, a Canadian physical education professor, created Kin-Ball in the mid 1980s. The game involves three teams of four players each in which a large ball (4 feet diameter and 2.2 pounds weight (1.22 m and 1 kg, respectively) is sent…

Childhood obesity prevention has fallen short of anticipated impact. Therefore, intervention programs need to be redirected to other potential settings to increase youth physical activity. This qualitative study, using autodriven interview techniques, was conducted to identify out-of-school settings that youth perceive as important for physical…

Drawing on feminist, critical, and poststructural theories, the purpose of this research was: (a) to understand fifth-grade mestizas self-identified barriers to physical activity, and (b) to work with them to develop strategies for challenging these barriers. Data were collected over the 2005-06 school year. Our interpretations are divided into…

There have been limited prospective studies investigating physical activity and physical self-perceptions in children. In this investigation, mean steps/day did not significantly change from late elementary to junior high for either boys or girls; however, boys accumulated more steps both at baseline and follow-up. Physical self-perception…

Seasonality appears to have an impact on children's physical activity levels, but equivocal findings demand more study in this area. With the increased use of pedometers in both research and practice, collecting descriptive data in various seasons to examine the impact of seasonality on pedometer-measured physical activity among children is…

This study was one of the first to examine elementary student performance on the first four national standards for physical education (National Association for Sport and Physical Education, 2004). Motor skill competency, strategic knowledge, physical activity, and physical fitness measures were collected from fourth- and fifth-grade students (N =…

Limited data are available on the contributory and compensatory relationships between physical education and physical activity in children. Four hundred eighty-five (280 girls) children in first through sixth grades wore sealed pedometers during waking hours, including normally scheduled physical education lessons. The least, moderately, and most…

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of age group, walking speed, and body composition on the accuracy of pedometer-determined step counts in children. Eighty-five participants (43 boys, 42 girls), ages 5-7 and 9-11 years, walked on a treadmill for two-minute bouts at speeds of 42, 66, and 90 m[middle dot]min[superscript -1]…

Constructivist physical education emphasizes cognitive engagement. This study examined the impact of a constructivist curriculum on in-class physical activity. Caloric expenditure in metabolic equivalents (MET) and vector magnitude count (VM) data from a random sample of 41 constructivist lessons were compared with those from a random sample of 35…

The System for Observing Fitness Instruction Time (SOFIT) is a direct observation system specifically developed for use during physical education (PE; McKenzie, 1991; McKenzie, Sallis, & Nader, 1991). The purpose of this study was to validate the estimates of time spent in various physical activity intensities obtained with the paper and pencil…