Statistics
Physical fitness has been proved to have an improvement on academic performance. Research shows that physical fitness is very useful and helpful for enhancing academic performance and sedentary behavior.
Academic rankings improved for boys and girls who increased their fitness level by >20 percentile points compared to other students. Opportunities for increased physical fitness may be important to support academic performance.
Almost two‐thirds of the included studies (62%) targeted the whole school environment, with approximately 38% exclusively targeting the PE environment.
The majority of quantitative studies had sample sizes of >1000 participants, with several studies including >10,000 participants. The majority of qualitative studies included between 30 and 100 participants. Regarding the quantitative studies, most were cross‐sectional (68%), 11 used a prospective designs (16%) and 11 were experimental (16%) including five randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
Approaches to increase physical activity or reduce sedentary behavior within schools should address the multiple layers of school environment and how features of the school’s physical, social and policy environment interact and influence each other to shape physical activity behaviors.
Hours of studying and social media use were both positively associated with body fat.
Course load was negatively associated with vigorous activity. Study time was negatively associated with cardiovascular endurance, positively associated with hip flexibility and sedentary behavior.
Higher GPA was associated with a higher BMI and a higher credit load was associated with less vigorous physical activity.
Thirty‐one studies reported a positive association between academic performance and cardiorespiratory fitness, six studies with muscular strength, three studies with flexibility, and seven studies reported a positive association between clustered of physical fitness components and academic performance.
There is strong evidence for a positive association between cardiorespiratory fitness and cluster of physical fitness with academic performance in cross‐sectional studies; and evidence from longitudinal studies for a positive association between cluster of physical fitness and academic performance; the relationship between muscular strength and flexibility with academic performance remains uncertain.
