Embedding physical activity into the educationalexperience to boost student mental health and wellbeing: Getting moving at University

今天的大学生是明天的领导者，决策者，工人和父母，并将塑造经济和社会（Dietz等人，2020）。一种危机感已经围绕这些学生的心理健康（MH）发展起来（高等教育政策研究所2016;公共政策研究所2017）。对已经过度紧张的支持服务的需求正在上升（公共政策研究所2017）。通过将重点从部门转移到机构，并将基于预防的举措纳入教育系统，可以减轻这些被动的个人服务的负担（PHE，2015年）。定期体力活动（PA）对MH和健康的益处是众所周知的（Dietz等人，2020）。最近的综述表明，PA干预改善了青春期的健康和生活质量（黑尔等人，2021; Piñeiro-Cossio等人，2021），并减少了学生的痛苦和抑郁感（Heinze等人，2021）（Gondoh等人，2009; Nabkasorn等人，2005）。至关重要的是，PA不仅有益于那些正在挣扎的人，而且还可以预防精神疾病（Pascoe和帕克2019; Heinzeet al. 2021），即使在低强度或轻度强度下进行，也能感受到PA的益处（Smith，Ekelund和Hamer，2015）尽管PA有好处，但在整个青春期，这种活动的比例会下降。（黑尔等人，2021）;全球80%的青少年未能达到每周150分钟PA的指南建议（货车Sluijs埃塔尔，2011）。2021年）。下降的部分原因可能是，随着重点转移到GCSE和A级或同等水平，学生不再接触全面的、以学校为基础的PA课程（货车Sluijs等人，2021年）。校本课程不仅通过体育课和运动来支持PA，还通过三种形式的课堂PA：身体主动学习，基于课程的活动休息和非课程休息（沃森等人。2017）。尽管有人呼吁将PA纳入课程（Kupchella 2009; Levitsky et al. 2006），但几乎没有证据表明英国大学采用任何系统的方法来推广PA。自COVID-19大流行以来，随着大学采用混合式教学，将PA嵌入大学教育体验的需求变得更加迫切（即部分在线，部分面对面），这可能会导致更低水平的工具性PA（马奎尔，戴尔和泡利2020）。一个有效的，嵌入式PA计划必须考虑后流行病大学的需求和实践，该项目将开发一种方法，将PA嵌入大学教育经验，以提高PA和增强心理健康。我们将特别关注将PA嵌入到大学体验的教育部分，因为这对大学来说很常见，但在考虑MHand福利干预时往往被忽视。我们将遵循系统干预开发方法（“行为改变轮”，米吉，阿特金斯和韦斯特2014）。首先，通过与利益相关者的定性访谈，我们将寻求开发一个系统图，以确定如何在大学教育系统中促进或阻碍学生PA。其次，我们将举办利益相关者研讨会，以确定系统内可能嵌入PA的关键站点，并共同设计干预策略。最后，我们将评估将PA嵌入该系统的干预的可行性和可接受性。

Today's university students are tomorrow's leaders,decision makers, workers and parents, and will shape theeconomy and society (Dietz et al. 2020). A sense of crisishas developed around the mental health (MH) of thesestudents (Higher Education Policy Institute 2016; Institutefor Public Policy Research 2017). Demand for already-overstretched support services is rising (Institute for PublicPolicy Research 2017). The burden on these reactive,individual services may be alleviated by shifting focus fromindividuals to institutions, and embedding prevention-based initiatives into the education system (PHE 2015). The benefits of regular physical activity (PA) for MH andwellbeing are well known (Dietz et al. 2020). Recentreviews demonstrate that PA interventions improvewellbeing and quality of life in adolescence (Hale et al.2021; Piñeiro-Cossio et al. 2021), and reduce feelings ofdistress and depression (Heinze et al. 2021) in students(Gondoh et al. 2009; Nabkasorn et al. 2005). Crucially, PAnot only benefits those who are struggling but can alsoprevent mental ill-health (Pascoe and Parker 2019; Heinzeet al. 2021) and the benefits of PA are felt even whenconducted at low or mild intensity (Smith, Ekelund, andHamer 2015).Despite the benefits of PA, rates of this activity declinethroughout adolescence (Hale et al. 2021); 80% ofadolescents globally fail to meet guidelinerecommendations of 150mins of PA per week (van Sluijs etal. 2021). The decline may arise partly because adolescentsare no longer exposed to comprehensive, school-based PAprogrammes, as the focus shifts to GCSEs and A-levels, orequivalent (van Sluijs et al. 2021). School-basedprogrammes support PA not only via PE lessons and sports,but also through three forms of classroom-based PA:physically active learning, curriculum-based activity breaks, and non-curriculum breaks (Watson et al. 2017). Despite calls to integrate PA into the curriculum (Kupchella2009; Levitsky et al. 2006), there is little evidence of anysystemic approach to PA promotion in UK universities. Theneed to embed PA into the university education experiencehas grown more acute since the COVID-19 pandemic, asuniversities have embraced blended delivery (i.e. partonline, part in-person), which likely incurs even lowerlevels of instrumental PA (Maguire, Dale, and Pauli 2020).An effective, embedded PA programme must consider thedemands and practices of the post-pandemic university andbe co-designed with stakeholders.This project will develop an approach to embed PA in theuniversity educational experience to increase PA andenhance mental health. We will specifically focus onembedding PA into the educational component of theuniversity experience, because this is common to allinstitutions, - yet often is neglected when considering MHand wellbeing interventions. We will follow a systematicintervention development approach (the 'Behaviour ChangeWheel', Michie, Atkins, and West 2014). First, throughqualitative interviews with stakeholders, we will seek todevelop a systems map to identify how student PA isfacilitated or hindered within the university educationsystem. Secondly, we will run stakeholder workshops toidentify key sites within the system at which PA might beembedded, and co-design intervention strategies. Finally,we will assess the feasibility and acceptability of anintervention embedding PA into this system.