the effect of regular physical activity on exercise tolerance: a school-based intervention

please cite this article as: sohrabi mr, davoudi-monfared e, tayefi b, hajihashemi z, sajjadi e. the effect of regular physical activity on exercise tolerance: a school-based intervention. novel biomed 2013;1(2):34-38. objectives: the main purpose of this study was to assess the effects of daily physical activity on exercise tolerance ability using the six minute walk test in healthy female students. methods: the participants in this field study were 252 healthy girls, 9-12 years old, studying in an elementary school in tehran from march to june 2011. a three months daily physical activity protocol, with 15 minutes exercise per day, was designed as a curricular-based exercise intervention program. the six minute walk test was used as a tool to measure exercise tolerance ability before and after the intervention. paired t-test, anova and correlation tests were used when appropriate. results: the participants, with mean age of 10.6 (sd = 1.1), formed different body mass index groups known as underweight, normal, at risk and overweight with 8.3, 60.7, 18.7, and 12.3% respectively. the mean of the distances moved along in a six minute walk test, before and after the intervention, increased from 833.4 meter to 923.3 meter , indicating 10% increase and the difference was found to be statistically significant (p<0.001). however, analysis of mean differences of the walked distances, before and after the intervention, showed no statistically significant difference for the body mass index groups (p> 0.05). conclusion: a 15-minutes daily physical activity could enhance the exercise tolerance of school-age girls; the activity, as an easy and inexpensive form of intervention, is recommended to students.