Research Impact: Enhancing adolescent mental health and wellbeing through school-based physical education, physical activity, and sports is a critical public health goal, yet existing research primarily focuses on physical education alone. This study highlights successful strategies within typical physical education frameworks to promote adolescent mental health and wellbeing. These include teacher workshops, high-intensity interval training, increased weekly physical education days, formative assessments, adventure education programs, self-esteem promotion, sport education curricula, and fostering emotionally intelligent classroom environments. Positive effects often stemmed from minor modifications to standard provision, while unchanged control groups showed limited impact. The findings underscore the importance of supplementing physical education with other provisions or increasing focus on physical activity and sports in schools. Gender differences should also be considered in future research.
Rocliffe, P., Adamakis, M., O’Keeffe, B. T., Walsh, L., Bannon, A., Garcia-Gonzalez, L., Chambers, F., Stylianou, M., Sherwin, I., Mannix-McNamara, P., & MacDonncha, C. (2023). The Impact of Typical School Provision of Physical Education, Physical Activity and Sports on Adolescent Mental Health and Wellbeing: A Systematic Literature Review. Adolescent Research Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40894-023-00220-0
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