Leveraging out-of-school time to promote healthy movement behaviors for children and adolescents
Published: March 21, 2025
Children spend a majority of their weekdays at school for most of the year. As a structured environment, school provides kids with scheduled activities, including recess and physical education, and policies limiting recreational screentime. Many public health programs use school settings to improve healthy lifestyles among children (6-11 years) and adolescents (12-17 years) by enhancing health curriculum that provides additional opportunities for physical activity and education about the benefits of reducing recreational screentime and improving sleep. But what are students doing when school lets out for the day, on weekends, and during holiday and summer breaks?
Recent studies have found children are less physically active and have increased recreational screentime and have poor sleep habits outside of school time. Lack of structure may contribute to this pattern of unhealthy movement behaviors seen outside of school hours. The Structured Days Hypothesis suggests structured environments (like school) may regulate health behaviors by providing scheduled physical activity opportunities, reducing screentime opportunities, and regulating sleep schedules. You can read more about that here.
Over the past few years, our team has been exploring out-of-school activities that positively contribute to children’s and adolescent’s adherence to the 24-hour movement behavior guidelines, which currently recommend:
- At least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day
- Less than 2 hours of recreational screentime
- Between 9-11 hours (for children) or 8-10 hours (for adolescents) of sleep per night
Our hope is we can use these findings to develop programs and strategies that can be used to promote participation in out-of-school activities and help more kids adhere to movement behavior guidelines after school.
In one study of over 20,000 adolescents across the United States, we found those who participated in extracurricular sports had much higher odds of meeting all three movement behavior guidelines compared to those who did not participate in sports. However, we know sports programs can be expensive, and not all adolescents end up making the team. To address this, schools may consider providing additional, non-competitive extracurricular sports options so more students have a chance to participate. Parents may consider options provided outside of school, like programs offered by local parks and recreation departments, which often cost less than traditional club sports not sponsored by schools.
We also found adolescents conducting community service or volunteer work outside of school hours had higher odds of meeting all three guidelines, just about equal to those who played sports. We were very excited to discover this because volunteering is a great way to give back to the community.
In another study among 4th grade children in Texas, we again found sports participation to be a strong predictor of meeting physical activity guidelines. But we also found children who played outside had even higher odds of meeting physical activity guidelines compared to children who did not play outside. This was another exciting discovery because, just like volunteering, playing outdoors is free and anyone can do it, regardless of athletic ability.
As we think about ways to promote healthy lifestyles for children and adolescents, it is encouraging to know the burden does not always have to fall on schools. Kids have plenty of opportunities to move more on non-school days, and some of these activities are free and mutually beneficial for students and communities.
Public health researchers and practitioners should continue to find ways in which we can promote participation in sports, volunteering, and outdoor play, especially for those who may lack access to these activities. To do this, communities can invest in infrastructure that creates safe places to play and widely advertise volunteering opportunities in places where youth spend time, schools can establish shared use agreements so sport and playground facilities can be accessed during out-of-school hours by members of the community, and parents/guardians can participate in sports, volunteering, and playing outdoors alongside their children, when possible.
