Active Breaks in primary school: a systematic review

School is an ideal setting for proposing interventions aimed at increasing levels of physical activity, since it is the place where children spend most of their day during their childhood (Story et al., 2009). The aim of the present study is to analyzed for the effects of active breaks in primary school, highlighting strengths and weaknesses regarding their rational proposal. A systematic literature review was performed to underline the relationship between active breaks and physical, cognitive and psychological variables of primary school children. The literature search was performed using four databases (PubMed, SPORTDiscus, Scopus and Web of Science) from January 2009 and January 2019. Only studies based on the proposal of classroom-active breaks (excluding multicomponent studies) have been included. Fifteen works were selected and included in the review. The results show an increase in MVPA physical activity levels in 53% of the studies; only 13% did not show significance between LAF and active breaks. There are limited evidences about cardiorespiratory fitness improvement, and BMI management. Some studies show an improvement in cognitive and attention factors, perceived self-efficacy and behavior in the classroom; only one study did not report statistically significant data (Fu & Burns, 2018).