Participants' opinions in an intervention to promote physical activity in the school context: Fit-Person Study

Despite the evidence on the health benefits of practicing physical activity in childhood, many schoolchildren still do not comply with the recommendations established by the World Health Organization. This reality emphasizes the need to evaluate intervention programs and search for more effective strategies. However, the participation of the beneficiaries in the evaluation and improvement of the design of intervention programs is rare. Following a qualitative methodology, in the present study 30 primary school students from Granada (Spain) were interviewed to know their perception of their experience in an innovative program to promote physical activity in which intermittent teaching units in Physical Education, activity monitors and behavior modification strategies were combined. After a coding process, the responses were grouped into three main categories: (1) characteristics of the changes perceived by the participants, (2) elements of the program that the participants considered had influenced these changes, and (3) proposals for program improvement. Among the guidelines that may be useful for the design of programs to promote the practice of physical activity at school age in the future are giving prominence to recreational and group physical activity, individualizing interventions to address diversity, consider the interdependence of schoolchildre & ntilde;s physical activity with their family environment and involve schoolchildren through participatory methodologies such as peer learning.