Get moving to get good grades

Today's youth are a sedentary lot. Most school-age children in the U.S. get less than the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity per day. A new study by Rollins researchers aims to provide evidence that increased physical activity improves academic achievement in order to motivate schools to improve policies and integrate more physical activity into the school day.

"Since the school environment serves more than 95 percent of youth, it is an important setting in which to impact both health and education outcomes," says Julie Gazmararian, associate professor of epidemiology. "Our study is using an established program that enables schools to easily integrate physical activity into their daily class time. With a rigorous study design and a program that fits into schools' busy schedules, this project will be valuable for those in the health and education communities who are developing programs and policies to help students be healthy and achieve academic success."

The team will test the relationship between physical activity and education outcomes among fourth- and fifth-grade elementary students over two years, with specific objectives that include examining the relationship between student-level physical activity and academic achievement measured by standardized tests.

"We believe that the research and data from this project will be extremely beneficial to school administrators, policymakers, researchers, and educational and health agencies," explains Christi Kay, president of HealthMPowers, a nonprofit that is partnering with Rollins to provide the school physical activity programs. "Our project will provide crucial evidence about the association between physical activity and educational outcomes that can have a tremendous impact on school policies to support healthy lifestyles."