Impact of Annual School Fitness Reports on Students' Cardiorespiratory Fitness: A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial of Parental Reporting.
BACKGROUND: School-based physical fitness testing is an important population health monitoring tool and has the potential to improve student fitness performance. However, few studies exist on the impact of reporting student fitness to parents. METHODS: Using data from the Fit Study (2014-2017) from 12 California public schools, we used mixed-effects models to compare changes in cardiorespiratory fitness (estimated peak oxygen consumption, calculated from the 1-mile run) and strength (curl-ups and push-ups) over 1 and 2 years between students randomized to having their parents receive an annual fitness report (intervention, n = 1638 students) and control (n = 2070) in grades 5 to 8 (ages 10-15 y). The student sample was 47.9% female, 55.9% Hispanic, and 24.1% Asian. RESULTS: After 1 year, intervention students did not demonstrate differential change compared with control students in estimated peak oxygen consumption (between-group change: -0.03 mL/kg/min; 95% CI, -.367 to 0.302), curl-ups (between-group change: 1.2 curl-ups; 95% CI, -0.306 to 2.660), or push-ups (between-group change: 0.1 push-ups; 95% CI, -0.672 to 0.787). Similarly, no differences were seen after 2 years. CONCLUSION: Sending a 2-page, once-a-year school-based fitness report home to parents-in the absence of environmental changes and/or behavioral coaching and support-does not impact student fitness performance after either 1 or 2 years of reporting.