To assess the efficacy of the physical activity interventions in the school setting to improve the cognition and metacognition of children and adolescents aged between 4 and 14 years has been the objective of the study ‘The Effect of Physical Activity Interventions on Children's Cognition and Metacognition,’ by Celia Álvarez Bueno, FPU researcher (University Teachers Training) of Health and Social Research Center of the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM).

The meta-analysis, recently published in the prestigious Journal of the American Academy of Childs & Adolescent Psychiatry, and part of the doctoral thesis of this researcher—directed by the university professor of the regional University, Vicente Martínez Vizcaíno, and Caterina Pesce, from the Foro Italico University of Rome—includes data from 5,527 people.

Thus, cognition encompasses the mental processes of acquisition of knowledge and understanding through daily experiences, while metacognition is understood as the self-knowledge of what everyone thinks and knows and how to use it to regulate, supervise, and manage mental processes

This study presents that physical activity programs improve the development of children's cognitive abilities, while in turn, programs that increase hours of daily physical activity during school hours are the most effective for enhancing the cognitive development of children. These results, together with the previous studies that highlight the benefits of physical activity in the general health of children, should, according to the researcher of this project, "be taken into account by the educational authorities and families by asserting that physical activity facilitates learning capacity and improves academic performance."

'The effect of physical activity interventions on cognition and metacognition' have an impact on how physical activity programs that are developed in the school environment can influence the development of children's cognitive abilities. This aspect had a growing interest in recent years because children spend a large part of their time at school, and additionally, it may be the ideal environment to promote healthy lifestyles that can be continued as adults.

To this end, two school interventions have been included in this study. On the one hand, the curricular activities that incorporate programs of physical activity integrated into the classroom with different subjects; those that increase the time of physical activity during the break time or at lunch; or on the other hand, others that simply increase hours of physical activity. In addition, there are others that are developed outside the school curriculum, and even that are directed mainly to enhance cognitive abilities through movement.

Office of Communications UCLM. Cuenca, October 23, 2017