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Educating the Student Body
high school girls spent more minutes per week in active physical education 
(37 minutes) than boys (26.9 minutes). The investigators concluded that 
physical education increased girls’ overall physical activity levels (Cawley 
et al., 2007). 
In direct observations of physical education classes in elementary 
schools across various U.S. localities, investigators noted that boys spent 
more time in physical education engaged in vigorous- or moderate-intensity 
physical activity than girls, although there were no gender differences in les-
son length or number of minutes of physical education (Belsky et al., 2003). 
Nevertheless, girls reported that physical education was their largest source 
of physical activity (14.3 percent), followed by lunchtime (11.7 percent) and 
recess (8.3 percent); among boys, lunchtime represented the largest single 
source of physical activity at school (13.4 percent), followed by physical 
education (12.7 percent) and recess (9.5 percent) (Brusseau et al., 2011). 
Impact on Physical Activity
Physical education programs and policies can shape the quantity and 
quality of physical activity among students across schools (Slater et al., 
2012). Studies using direct observations of physical activity have found 
large variations in the amount of vigorous- or moderate-intensity physical 
activity performed by students during their physical education classes: a 
range of 9-48 percent (Pate et al., 2011).
A number of school-based intervention studies have targeted physical 
education classes as a focus for increasing vigorous- or moderate-intensity 
physical activity in young children; many of these studies have included 
other intervention components, such as environmental changes. In the 
CATCH intervention study, involving children in elementary schools, an 
increase in the intensity of physical activity in physical education classes 
during the intervention was observed in the intervention schools compared 
with the control schools. Compared with control students, moreover, those 
in the intervention schools reported significantly more minutes of daily 
vigorous activity (Luepker et al., 1996). In the Sports, Play, and Active 
Recreation for Kids (SPARK) intervention, also comprising elementary 
schools, vigorous- or moderate-intensity physical activity increased dur-
ing physical education among 4th graders (Sallis et al., 1997). The SPARK 
intervention also showed that students who received physical education 
from specialists had the highest percentage of class time (40 percent) in 
vigorous- or moderate-intensity physical activity, compared with those who 
received physical education from trained teachers (33 percent) and controls 
(18 percent) (Sallis et al., 1997). 
In a follow-up of the CATCH study, while participants were in 
8th grade, investigators observed that the intervention students maintained 

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Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Educating the Student Body: Taking Physical Activity and Physical Education to School
The Effectiveness of Physical Activity and Physical Education Policies and Programs
 
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a significantly higher amount of self-reported daily vigorous activity com-
pared with control students; however, the intervention-control differences 
declined over time (13.6 minutes in grade 5, 11.2 minutes in grade 6, 
10.8 minutes in grade 7, and 8.8 minutes in grade 8) (Nader et al., 1999), 
highlighting the need for longer-term school-based interventions. Further, 
in an intervention for girls aged 11-12 designed to increase vigorous- or 
moderate-intensity physical activity during physical education lessons, 
the experimental group engaged in more of such activity than the con-
trol group and had more opportunities for skill practice (Fairclough and 
Stratton, 2005). 
Cross-sectional studies also have documented that participation in daily 
school physical education programs is associated with an increased likeli-
hood of engaging in vigorous- or moderate-intensity physical activity among 
middle and high school adolescents nationwide (Gordon-Larsen et al., 
2000). Moreover, participating in physical education was associated with 
engaging in an additional 18 minutes per week of overall physical activity, 
even after adjusting for age, gender, race, and income, among adolescents in 
California (Diamant et al., 2011). One study, using cross-sectional data from 
the National Survey of Children’s Health, found that, although there was 
no significant association between schools requiring physical education and 
levels of physical activity in the sample overall, such an association did exist 
for girls (Kim, 2012), suggesting that physical education may be particularly 
important for increasing physical activity in girls.
Consistent with results from the above studies, several reviews 
(Dobbins et al., 2009; Kriemler et al., 2011; Pate et al., 2011; Heath et al., 
2012) have concluded that school-based interventions increased vigorous- 
or moderate-intensity physical activity during physical education (Pate et 
al., 2011); duration of physical activity (Dobbins et al., 2009) (not neces-
sarily only in physical education); physical activity overall (Heath et al., 
2012); and physical activity in school, out of school, and overall (Kriemler 
et al., 2011).
Effects of school-based interventions on the quantity and quality of 
physical activity are favorable, as are the positive associations documented 
in observational studies. However, studies involving direct observations of 
physical activity during physical education classes provide strong evidence 
that the classes do not provide sufficient activity to enable children or ado-
lescents to attain the recommended levels of daily vigorous- or moderate-
intensity physical activity; the classes also do not reach the goal of 50 per-
cent of class time spent in such activity (Pate et al., 2011). Further, there 
is a dearth of research concerning intervention effects and observational 
associations of school-based programs and the quantity and quality of 
physical activity across subgroups based on race/ethnicity, gender, immigra-
tion status, and socioeconomic status. 

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Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Educating the Student Body: Taking Physical Activity and Physical Education to School
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