Active snacks for the promotion of physical activity in Southern Italy: preliminary results

The Active Snacks project (2019/2020) is aimed both at studying the motor development of the child andopeningnew opportunities for the practice of physical activity in primary and secondary schools. The purpose of thisstudy is to evaluate the effects of active breaks on enjoyment and perceived self-efficacy, showing preliminaryresults of the project. The sample is made up of 56 primary and secondary school children (M = 31, F = 25, age= 9.64 ± 1.40, weight = 41.80 ± 23.3 kg, height = 1.42 ± 0.10 m, BMI = 20.26 ± 4.09 kg / m2) from an Apulianprovince. The intervention protocol provided for the proposal of 3-5-minute active breaks, carried out in theclassroom for a week during school hours. Psychological factors were assessed with two self-reports: PSP_C andPACES. Besides descriptive statistics (M ± SD), the analysis of ANOVA and Pearson’s correlation coefficientwere performed to measure pre-and post-intervention differences relatedto BMI. The significance index was setat p <.05. The results highlighted: (a) overweight children achieved higher scores in terms of perceived selfefficacy and enjoyment than those of normal weight and obese, both in pre- and post-intervention; (b)statistically significant differences in the level of self-efficacy (Nw vs Ob; Ow vs Ob) post intervention; (c)moderate to high correlations between BMI and perceived self-efficacy post intervention in overweight andobese groups. Preliminary results proved useful and effective for increasing levels of self-efficacy and fun innormal weight groups. Further studies are needed to evaluate the effects in the medium to long term.