Objectives: Research has documented an increased prevalence of obesity rates and low level achievement in mathematics
for school aged children in America. However, despite the preponderance of research, there has been very little done to
systematically review school based physical activity (PA) intervention effects on both BMI status and academic
achievement in children. The purpose of this systematic review was to examine concurrent effects of school-based PA
interventions on both BMI and academic achievement in children and the role of BMI in this effect. Methods: Seven
experimental studies that met the inclusion criteria for this review were extracted from 218 peer-reviewed articles.
Results: This review found that participation in daily 40-minute vigorous aerobic PA for 13-15 weeks yielded significant
intervention effects in executive function and the math achievement tests, but not in the reading tests and BMI z-scores for
sedentary, overweight children. However, participation in either daily 15 minute sessions of physically active academic
lessons or weekly 90-minute aerobic PAs for a year, yielded concurrent significant positive changes in BMI percentiles
and higher scores in math achievement tests for children with varying BMI statuses and diverse ethnic backgrounds. In
particular, a significantly greater proportion of the obese and at-risk for obesity children involved in the intervention,
decreased their BMI percentiles compared to the control peers. In addition, the obese children gained the most significant
improvement in the math achievement tests compared to other two groups. Conclusions: longitudinal and regular schoolbased
PA interventions generate positive improvements in BMI percentiles and math achievement tests among schoolaged
children regardless of their weight status, ethnic backgrounds, and socioeconomic situations.