Racial/ethnic minority children residing in low-resource areas of Missouri may benefit the most from school-based opportunities for moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), suggests a new study from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine and St Louis Public Schools.
As part of their study, researchers measured the MVPA heart rate of urban public elementary school children in Missouri on school days with and school days without PE class by using continuous heart rate monitoring. The heart rate of 81 students (93.8 percent black) in grades 3 and 5 was recorded in 15-second intervals. On the basis of 575 school-day observations, students accumulated 44.4 minutes of MVPA on days with PE and 30.6 MVPA minutes on days without PE.
