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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. Physical Education and Pedagogy
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2024.1433801
This article is part of the Research Topic Schools as an arena for health-promoting physical activity View all 7 articles

Outdoor recess is associated with more positive attitudes toward physical activity among pre-adolescent students and their parents

Provisionally accepted
Getter Marie Lemberg Getter Marie Lemberg *Merike Kull Merike Kull Jarek Mäestu Jarek Mäestu Eva-Maria Riso Eva-Maria Riso Katrin Mägi Katrin Mägi Evelin Mäestu Evelin Mäestu
  • Institute of Sport Sciences and Physiotherapy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Schools are ideal settings for implementing various physical activity (PA) interventions considering the amount of time students spend in school. School culture and various activities included in the school schedule can be important factors in developing positive attitudes toward PA and the behavioral habits of students. In the current study, we investigated students' and their parents' perceptions of outdoor recess and PA opportunities in schools with different recess opportunities. In addition, it was explored whether the recess opportunities are related to students' leisure-time PA. Our main finding was that students in schools with outdoor recess on every day and their parents had significantly more positive attitudes about outdoor recess and PA opportunities in school. Furthermore, students in schools with outdoor recess on every day stated being significantly more active during their leisure time compared to students in other groups. These results emphasize the positive effect schools can have on students' PA levels by implementing outdoor recess in the school schedule. The results of the current study also encourage stakeholders to make a daily outdoor recess a reality, fostering positive attitudes about PA and increased PA levels of students.

    Keywords: outdoor recess, physical activity, attitudes, Students, Parents, School day

    Received: 16 May 2024; Accepted: 30 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Lemberg, Kull, Mäestu, Riso, Mägi and Mäestu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Getter Marie Lemberg, Institute of Sport Sciences and Physiotherapy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.