Sometimes when I drive past our local elementary school playground, I think back fondly to my time spent hanging upside down on the monkey bars and swinging as high as I could muster.
It has long been recognized that children need physical activity to break up the day. But in recent years, it has become clear that school recess has even broader effects. A new systematic review published this week in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine shows a positive relationship between physical activity and academic performance – essentially demonstrating that recess helps kids learn.
The authors reviewed 14 studies over the past 20 years that collected data about physical activity or fitness and academic performance or cognition on children ages 6 to 18, and found that children who were more physically active performed better in school.
Researchers believe that exercise increases blood and oxygen flow to the brain. It also leads bodies to produce more of the neurotransmitters responsible for improving mood and boosts growth factors that help create new nerve cells.
But the available evidence has a fault. Of the studies included in the review, only two of them were classified as high-quality, primarily because of the measurements instruments used.
What’s needed, the researchers concluded are more studies that examine the dose-response relationship between physical activity and academic performance – essentially, how much exercise is optimal for helping kids in the classroom.
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