Meta-analysis of a moderate-to-vigorous physical activity intervention for academic achievement in children and adolescents

11 studies, 4,552 participants

Children and adolescents

Random-effects meta-analysis in RevMan 5.3 of experimental studies of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity on academic performance, with subgroup analyses by subject, age and dose. Read in full abstract; recorded because it is one of the recent metas driving the "optimal dose" claim in circulation.

Reports SMD 0.24 (95% CI 0.13 to 0.35) overall, mathematics 0.23, reading 0.24, and an "optimal dose" of 30-60 minutes per session, 2-3 times per week. The abstract also states that "the effect of literature publication bias detection was positive" — i.e. publication bias was present — yet the reported estimates are uncorrected. The internal arithmetic is also incoherent — the composite-achievement estimate (SMD 0.33, 95% CI -0.15 to 0.80) is non-significant and larger than the subject-specific estimates it should aggregate.

Intervention corpus, so genetic confounding of the treatment contrast is not the issue.