The Daily Mile™: Acute effects on children’s cognitive function and factors affecting their enjoyment

The Impact of the Daily Mile™ on School Pupils’ Fitness, Cognition, and Wellbeing: Findings From Longer Term Participation

“…Interestingly in Booth et al (2020) there was no acute impact on visual-spatial working memory but there was a positive impact on other measures of cognition and wellbeing. Similarly, the two other studies which have explored the acute impact of The Daily Mile™ ( Morris et al, 2019 ; Hatch et al, 2021 ) found varied pattern of results in terms of the acute impact on cognition, although the scale of both of these studies was much smaller. Differential impact of physical activity on tasks of cognition, including working memory, has been reported in previous reviews ( Smith et al, 2010 ) and as the effect size detected in the present study is small, it is worth conducting further research with a range of measures of visual-spatial working memory before strong conclusions are drawn.…”

“…10 years old, an acute beneficial impact has been found for short physical activity breaks including a Daily Mile like activity for aspects of executive function ( Booth et al, 2020 ). Furthermore, a recent study examined the acute impact of participation in The Daily Mile™ in a sample of 104 children (mean age 10.4 years) and found a trend for a positive impact on children’s working memory, but no broad impact on cognition ( Hatch et al, 2021 ). Hatch and colleagues also found that children enjoyed participation and reported a positive impact on social relatedness and autonomy.…”

Effect of 5-weeks participation in The Daily Mile on cognitive function, physical fitness, and body composition in children

“…The battery of cognitive function tests included the Stroop test (measure of information processing and inhibitory control), Sternberg paradigm (measure of visual working memory) and Flanker task (measure of attention and inhibitory control), which were completed in that order. Full details of each of these cognitive tests and are provided elsewhere 16 , which have previously been used successfully in a similar study population 16 and the reliability reported 28 . The test battery was completed 30-min after the start of breakfast (Fig.…”

“…Outcome variables for each of the tests was the percentage of correct responses (%) and the response time (ms) to achieve each correct response. Each of the cognitive function tests included in the battery have previously been used successfully in a similar study population 16 .…”

“…However, an important secondary finding of the citizen science study 19 and that of Hatch et al 15 was that children with higher physical fitness (measured as distance ran on the multi-stage fitness test; MSFT) displayed enhanced cognition compared to less fit children. Therefore, given the positive association between physical fitness and cognitive function in children 5 , 16 , and the potential for participation in The Daily Mile to enhance fitness 19 , it is important future research concurrently examines the chronic effects of The Daily Mile on physical fitness and subsequent cognitive function, as it might be that the benefits on cognition occur chronically via improvements in physical fitness.…”