Effects of extra school-based physical education on overall physical fitness development--the CHAMPS study DK. The CHAMPS study DK

First, this study aimed to investigate if four extra physical education\n(PE) lessons per week improved children's development in physical\nfitness. Second, to investigate if the extra PE lessons improved\ndevelopment in physical fitness for children with lower levels of\nfitness at baseline. This study was a longitudinal controlled\nschool-based study. The study population consisted of 10 Danish public\nschools with children in preschool to fourth grade (cohorts 0-4) with\n2.5-year follow-up. Six schools had extra PE and four schools had normal\nPE. In total 1247 children were included (normal PE = 536, extra PE =\n711). Development in fitness was analyzed using a composite z-score from\nsix fitness tests. Multilevel mixed-effects linear regression was used\nto examine the association between school type and development in\nfitness. Extra PE increased the total development of composite z-score\nunits among children enrolled in cohort 4 and borderline in cohort 3\nwith 1.06 (95% confidence interval 0.48-1.65) and 0.52 z-score units\n(-0.06 to 1.09), respectively. Children in the lower 50 percentiles\nincreased their development with 0.47 (0.08-0.85) z-score units. Extra\nPE in schools improved development in fitness for cohort 4 and\nborderline for cohort 3 among all children. Extra PE improved fitness\ndevelopment across all cohorts among children with low fitness levels.