SynthesisThe international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity2020
A critical evaluation of systematic reviews assessing the effect of chronic physical activity on academic achievement, cognition and the brain in children and adolescents: a systematic review.
Synthesis in The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A critical systematic review of the impact of sedentarism and physical inactivity on the cognitive performance of children.Systematic reviews · 2026Pooled it
- Pooled it
- The frontal association area: exercise-induced brain plasticity in children and adolescents and implications for cognitive intervention practice.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2024Pooled it
- Effects of Resistance Training on Academic Outcomes in School-Aged Youth: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2023Pooled it
- What makes interventions aimed at improving dietary behaviours successful in the secondary school environment? A systematic review of systematic reviews.Public health nutrition · 2022Pooled it
- Physical activity and academic achievement: an analysis of potential student- and school-level moderators.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2022Trial
- Effects of an Exercise Program on Brain Health Outcomes for Children With Overweight or Obesity: The ActiveBrains Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2022Trial
- The longitudinal association between objectively-measured school-day physical activity and academic achievement in US elementary school students.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2022Trial
- Music and physical activity in early childhood: the ambiguous role of the at-home context and extracurricular activities.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Gray matter volume moderates the effect of acute physical activity on cognitive load and relates to reading comprehension in adolescents: the Cogni-Action Project.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Anxiety, Academic Performance, and Physical Activity in University Students: A Scoping Review.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2025Review
- Review
- How the time and type of physical education lessons affect attention capacity and cortisol levels in primary school children.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Effects of technology-enhanced physical activity on brain and mental health in youth: An umbrella review of meta-analyses.World journal of psychiatry · 2025Article
- Effects of physical activity interventions on fundamental movement skills and cognitive function in early childhood: A systematic review and network meta-analysis.Journal of sport and health science · 2025Review
- Determining Factors for the Development of Critical Thinking in Higher Education.Journal of Intelligence · 2025Review
- Geographic disparities in physical activity, sedentary behavior, sleep time, and gross motor skills in Nigerian preschoolers.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- The effects of different training programs on sleep and academic performance of senior high school boy students: a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Early life factors that affect obesity and the need for complex solutions.Nature reviews. Endocrinology · 2025Review
- The Methodological Quality of Studies on Physical Exercise in Adolescents with Cerebral Palsy: A Scoping Review of Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundInternational and national committees have started to evaluate the evidence for the effects of physical activity on neurocognitive health in childhood and adolescence to inform policy. Despite an increasing body of evidence, such reports have shown mixed conclusions. We aimed to critically evaluate and synthesise the evidence for the effects of chronic physical activity on academic achievement, cognitive performance and the brain in children and adolescents in order to guide future research and inform policy.
methodsMedLine, Embase, PsycINFO, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and ERIC electronic databases were searched from inception to February 6th, 2019. Articles were considered eligible for inclusion if they were systematic reviews with or without meta-analysis, published in peer-reviewed (English) journals. Reviews had to be on school-aged children and/or adolescents that reported on the effects of chronic physical activity or exercise interventions, with cognitive markers, academic achievement or brain markers as outcomes. Reviews were selected independently by two authors and data were extracted using a pre-designed data extraction template. The quality of reviews was assessed using AMSTAR-2 criteria.
resultsOf 908 retrieved, non-duplicated articles, 19 systematic reviews met inclusion criteria. One high-quality review reported inconsistent evidence for physical activity-related effects on cognitive- and academic performance in obese or overweight children and adolescents. Eighteen (critically) low-quality reviews presented mixed favourable and null effects, with meta-analyses showing small effect sizes (0.1-0.3) and high heterogeneity. Low-quality reviews suggested physical activity-related brain changes, but lacked an interpretation of these findings. Systematic reviews varied widely in their evidence synthesis, rarely took intervention characteristics (e.g. dose), intervention fidelity or study quality into account and suspected publication bias. Reviews consistently reported that there is a lack of high-quality studies, of studies that include brain imaging outcomes, and of studies that include adolescents or are conducted in South American and African countries.
conclusionsInconsistent evidence exists for chronic physical activity-related effects on cognitive-, academic-, and brain outcomes. The field needs to refocus its efforts towards improving study quality, transparency of reporting and dissemination, and is urged to differentiate between intervention characteristics for its findings to have a meaningful impact on policy.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.