A school-based intervention to promote physical activity among adolescents

The intervention will involve 70-minutes supervised physical activity session by the researcher in the presence of the physical education teacher, in addition to 10 minutes of classroom discussion per week during 12 weeks intervention. This length is segmented as – first 10 minutes for classroom discussion with the distribution of IEC materials, followed by 30-minutes supervised physical activity during the formal physical education class and 40 minutes supervised physical activity during recess time. Examples of the details are as follows: Physical activity session- A total of 70 minutes physical activity session per week will be offered in each interventional school during physical education class and recess time. During this physical activity session, the participants will do sports activities as per their most preferred (e.g., football, cricket), which will be sorted out from the formative research. However, most sports activities will be considered from the students’ preference list by the researcher. After this, participating students from the intervention schools will participate in 30-minutes supervised activities following warm-up and cool-down session during the formal physical education class. Firstly, the warm-up (e.g., light stretching) will be performed for about 5 minutes before the activities to prepare the body and mind for the activities; secondly, the preferred activities will be for 20 minutes followed by a cool-down session for 5 minutes to allow the heart rate to return to normal after the participation of the activities. Furthermore, 40-minutes supervised physical activity session will be offered during recess time. The supervised recess time physical activity session will utilize some sports equipment (e.g. soccer balls, Frisbee), which will be made available for the students during each of the recess sessions. The students will be encouraged to use the sports equipment and be physically active during recess time. The class captains will be asked to keep a log of equipment used during recess and number of children playing the sport or game. This will be done under the supervision of the physical education teachers. Classroom discussion/session- The researcher will give a total of 12 health education lectures (once a week) for 10 minutes before physical activity session in the intervention schools. A brief power point presentation will be delivered each of the 12 weeks on physical activity (e.g., intensity, duration, reducing sedentary time) and healthy eating (e.g., increasing consumption of vegetables and fruits, reducing consumption of meat, snacks, western fast foods). Information, education and communication (IEC) materials- The IEC materials such as infograph and a sticker will be developed with the aim to promote active lifestyles. The “infograph” will be a graphic visual representation of information or knowledge on some important aspects of physical activity (e.g., benefits of physical activity in children and adolescents, recommended the level of daily physical activity, fun ways to be the physical activity). The “sticker” will be a simplified form of key messages on children and adolescents’ physical activity. With prior permission from participating schools, these materials will be distributed by the research team to the students. Copies of these materials will also be provided to the class teachers and school principals who will be encouraged to distribute them to their students and their families. If schools permit, stickers will be pasted within the schools (e.g., notice board, school gate).