An intervention to break up sitting time among schoolchildren was not effective

Too much and prolonged sitting may be a risk factors for cardiometabolic health. The UP4FUN intervention is a family-involved school-based intervention aiming at reducing and breaking up sitting time at home (with special emphasis on screen time), and breaking up sitting time in school among 10–12 year olds in different countries across Europe. In a paper just published in the journal Plos One -with Dr. Froydis Vik as first author- we report on the intervention's short term effects.
A total of 3147 pupils from Belgium, Germany, Greece, Hungary and Norway participated in a school-randomized controlled trial. The intervention included 1–2 school lessons per week for a period of six weeks, along with assignments for the children and their parents. Screen time and breaking up sitting time were registered by self-report and total sedentary time and breaking up sitting time by accelerometry. The effect of the intervention on these behaviors was analysed by multilevel regression analyses. All analyses were adjusted for baseline values and gender. No significant intervention effects were observed, neither for self-reported TV/DVD or computer/game console time, nor for accelerometer-assessed total sedentary time and number of breaks in sitting time. The intervention group did report more positive attitudes towards and preferences/liking for breaking up sitting time than the control group.
Overall, these results do not warrant wider dissemination of the present UP4FUN intervention.