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The Daily Mile Improves the Physical Fitness of Italian Primary School Children and is easy to implement.

Research led by the University of Torino has found that The Daily Mile is versatile and transferable to primary schools in Italy.Teachers saw positive effects within their school environment, after doing The Daily Mile. Children who took part in The Daily Mile had significantly increased physical fitness and teachers found the programme extremely easy to implement into their school day.

There were two groups – the control group which consisted of 309 students, and the experimental group which had 486 students who implemented The Daily Mile as per core principles for 3-months. According to the University of Torino, 96.4% of teachers participating in the study said The Daily Mile has no negative impact on their teaching and 93% said The Daily Mile was extremely easy to implement. In total, 72% of teachers were very satisfied with the activity and compared to the control group, fitness significantly increased in the experiment group who completed The Daily Mile.

You can read the full study here.

 

The Daily Mile helps children be more active, significantly increases fitness levels, and improves body composition by reducing body fat.

Research carried out by the Universities of Stirling and Edinburgh and published in BMC Medicine (2018) has concluded that The Daily Mile is an “effective intervention” and has measurable positive health outcomes in physical activity, sedentary behaviour, fitness and body composition of primary school children.

They conducted a quasi-experimental repeated measures pilot study in two primary schools (n=391): One introduced the Daily Mile, and one continued the usual curriculum. They found that in the intervention school MVPA (Moderate to vigorous physical activity) increased by 9 minutes a day, and sedentary time was reduced by 18 minutes. Bleep test results improved by 39m (6% increase) and skinfolds reduced by 1.4mm (4% decreased).

They conclude that the Daily Mile is a worthwhile intervention to introduce into schools. It is effective in increasing levels of MVPA, decreasing sedentary time and improving body composition. These findings have relevance to teachers, policy makers, public health practitioners and health researchers.

Read the full article here.