New study: Children are more active when they attend after-school clubs

Many children go straight home after school, whilst others stay on at the after-school club, known as SFO.

In addition, sports clubs, abbreviated to IFO, have become increasingly common. But how does this affect how much children move?

Researchers at the University of Agder have investigated this in a new study.

It's about organised play

The idea for the study came from student supervision, as public health students undertake placements at sports and leisure schemes.

This made the researchers curious about just how active the children actually are there.

The researchers believe that the term ‘sports and leisure programme’ may give a slightly misleading impression. Many people associate it with football and competition, but it is mainly about organised play, supervised by adults.

"I think it should be called an ‘activity-based after-school programme.’ This is about activities, not sport. The idea is to provide more organised activities for the children. By calling it a ‘sports-based after-school programme,’ there is a risk that only those children who are already interested in sport will take part," says associate professor Kjersti Karoline Danielsen.

How the children's activity was measured

The researchers monitored children who attended IFO at least one day a week, SFO at least one day a week, and who went home one day a week.

59 children took part in the study.

The children wore a small activity monitor attached to their hip for a whole week, from morning to evening.

The data collection was carried out by master’s student Eirik René Johnsen.

"An accelerometer provides concrete data and is much more reliable than asking children or parents about activity levels. Children’s daily routines are not standardised, so it was a huge task to sort through all the data and ensure that everything was correct," he says.

Small difference between IFO and SFO

On average, the children had 88 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity on IFO days, compared with 81 minutes on SFO days.

The difference is small, and it was not statistically significant either, as the sample size was relatively small.

Between 1 pm and 4 pm, the difference was slightly more pronounced. During this period, the children had 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity on IFO days, compared with 22 minutes on SFO days.

"The findings are still interesting, as the children in our study are, by and large, an active group who all attend IFO and are unlikely to choose sedentary activities such as beadwork and drawing at SFO," says associate professor Silje Halvorsen Sveaas.

This surprised the researchers

The most striking finding was something else entirely: the difference between attending an after-school club at all and going home after school.

Between 1 pm and 4 pm, the children had just 17 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity on days when they went home. That is roughly half the time they spent being active at the after-school club.

“We were actually quite surprised that the differences were so great. Their activity levels almost double if they attend an after-school programme,” says Danielsen.

A window of opportunity for physical activity

Norwegian authorities have long wanted to see more physical activity in children’s daily lives, including through one hour of daily activity at school.

This has not yet been introduced.

The researchers believe that the time immediately after school could be put to better use. This is the period between the end of the school day and when parents finish work.

"Instead of children going home to empty houses full of tempting screens, this could be a fantastic opportunity to get them active," says Sveaas.

“These are a few hours in children’s daily lives that we don’t need to make time for. Here lies an opportunity to increase children’s activity levels throughout primary school,” says master's student Johnsen.

In the study, which was carried out in winter, 73 per cent of the children achieved the recommended amount of daily activity.

The boys were generally more active than the girls. This is consistent with previous Norwegian studies. The researchers believe that better arrangements are needed to encourage girls’ participation.

Source:

Sveaas et al. Idrettsfritidsordning er et mulighetsvindu for å fremme fysisk aktivitet hos barn: En tverrsnittstudie (After-school sports programmes are a window of opportunity for promoting physical activity among children: A cross-sectional study), Fysioteraputen, 2026. 

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Read the Norwegian version of this article on forskning.no

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