Improving Physical Activity Levels among Children through the Use of Before- and After-School Programs
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Physical activity plays an integral role in child development, with benefits being shown in both mental and physical aspects of growth (Janssen & Leblanc, 2010; Strong et al., 2005). Currently, only 9% of boys and 4% of girls are meeting the recommended guidelines of 60 minutes per day in Canada (Colley et al., 2011). The current efforts of schools in Canada have not provided adequate attention to increasing the levels of children’s physical activity in physical education, daily physical activity, or recess. The current project aims to help improve physical activity levels among children through the use of before- and after-school programs, as such programs are considered a suitable environment to help improve levels of physical activity for children (Canadian Active After School Partnership, 2014) and tend to be already readily accessed by Canadian families (Canadian Active After School Partnership, 2014). By creating easy and accessible recourses for these programs, registered early childhood educators, who may not have equal access to the importance of physical activity, can begin to increase the levels of physical activity in their programs with hopes of helping children achieve their recommended 60 minutes of daily physical activity. This project provides such resources based on a thorough review of the research literature.