November 25, 2010 – Devoting more hours to physical activity in schools would improve students’ academic performance, even cutting hours away from teaching other subjects.
This is what François Trudeau said, who presented a conference on the effect of physical activity on academic success, as part of the Annual Public Health Days (JASP).1.
According to Trudeau, who is director of the Department of Human Kinetics at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières, school boards are reluctant to cut teaching hours to devote more time to activity physical, “because they fear a reduction in academic performance”.
However, by cutting up to 5 hours of class per week to replace them with physical activity, students would have similar results – or even better – than those they had before.
Francois Trudeau
This is the conclusion that François Trudeau came to after conducting a study review, which was published in 20082.
“Even cutting off teaching hours, half of the studies showed that increasing physical education time allowed students to maintain such good results – meaning their performance improved as they had less. hours of lessons, ”he explains.
The other half of the studies he analyzed showed that academic performance had even improved. (See box below)
Why bet on school first to increase the level of activity among young people?
“Because 98% of children go to school,” recalls Mr. Trudeau. It is accessible to everyone, regardless of the background they come from. “
We have also observed that, among young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, those who engage in extracurricular physical activity have better results in mathematics than those who do not move.
“We believe that it is the presence of adults in schools and extracurriculars that influences these young people: they see several models of adults and that motivates them to continue school,” believes Mr. Trudeau.
In addition, an American study which will be published soon will add, according to him, to the relevance of making young people move more in school environment: the sedentary pupils displaying an excess of weight would experience metabolic disorders which would accentuate the learning problems.
Benefits beyond physical formHere are the main conclusions that emerge from the studies analyzed by François Trudeau, dealing with the effect of physical activity on academic success.
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Obesity peaks among young people
Guy Thibault
Researcher at the Sports and Physical Activity Directorate of the Ministry of Education, Recreation and Sport (MELS), Guy Thibault believes that parents have started to apply the many messages aimed at getting children to move more.
“We recently observed a slight decrease in obesity among young Quebecers,” he said. It is too early to speak of a breakthrough in this direction, but we can think that obesity is leveling off. “
Nevertheless: 1 in 2 young people do not move enough in Quebec and the situation is worse among adolescents:
- in 2004, among children aged 6 to 11, 1 in 4 boys (26.5%) and almost 1 in 2 girls (49.2%) did less than 7 hours per week of physical activity;
- in 2008, among 12 to 17 year olds, 1 in 2 boys (47.5%) and almost 2 in 3 girls (64.7%) did not cross this threshold. Between childhood and adolescence, there is therefore a significant decrease in the practice of physical activity, particularly among girls.
According to Guy Thibault, young people must be offered a variety of activities, without restricting themselves to a specific number of minutes of exercise to accumulate each day. “When it comes to physical exercise, doing a little is already a lot and doing more is always better,” he says.
In addition, it reminds parents to avoid putting pressure on their children who play sports or portraying physical activity as a necessary chore. “The notions of pleasure and play must remain central,” insists Guy Thibault.
Finally, he believes that everyone should play their role as citizens “by ensuring that municipal and school administrations create conditions favorable to a natural, healthy and fun practice of physical activities of all kinds”, concludes Guy Thibault.
Martin LaSalle – PasseportSanté.net
1. To find out more about the Annual Public Health Days: www.inspq.qc.ca/jasp [consulté le 23 novembre 2010].
2. Trudeau F, Shephard RJ, Physical education, school physical activity, school sports and academic performance, International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, February 28, 2008, vol. 5, no 10.
