Actividad motórica deportivainfluencia en el rendimiento escolar de niños de 10 a 14 años

Abstract

Background. Over the last decades, evidence has accumulated overall indicating that regular physical activity positively impacts performances at school and cognitive abilities across ages. Objective. To explore the emotional behavior of schoolchildren relative to physical acivity, and to evaluate differences, if any, in both performances and behavior in classroom between pupils who regularly partecipated in physical activities and nonathletes . Subjects and methods. Adolescents attending the secondary school from three different areas [urban area (UA); suburban area (SA); high-risk area (HRA)] within the urban district of Messina (Italy) were administered two structured questionnaires specifically designed to assess: i) socio-economic status (SES), participation and type of physical activities, along with information about frequency of training; ii) well-being at school. Also, information was collected from teachers concerning pupils’ behaviour and performances. Results. Overall, full information was available for 392 subjects (211/392 boys and 181/392 girls), equally distributed between the three areas. Mean age of the participants was 12.1±0.75 years. Two third of pupils (294/392) were actively involved in physical activities, mostly represented by team sports, with a significantly higher rate of males being active compared to females. There was a trend towards a decrease in the rate of active students from the UA to the HRA, which was paralleled by a significant reduction in the SES, as assessed by means of the Hollingshead index. No differences were recorded between males and females relative to their feeling on the benefits of physical activity on both body and mental health; only 50% of the whole sample thought that a regular physical activity could be useful for their intellectual performances at school. However, when data on school performances provided by their teachers were related to the regular practice of physical activity, a significantly higher rate of active students was found to have better school performances than non-active students. In addition, at multivariate regression analysis, both physical activity and SES resulted to be independently associated to better academic performances. Conclusions. The results of this study, based on self-reported information, overall indicate participation in physical activity to be positively related to academic performance in adolescents. Further studies addressing the effects of physical activity on specific areas of knowledge may provide new insights into the mechanisms underlying the observed beneficial effects.