The Effect Of Fitness On Executive Functioning Of The Brain In High School Age Children

An increasingly sedentary lifestyle of modern children may have negative repercussion in their development and academics. The purpose of this study was to look for a possible relationship between fitness and executive functioning. It was hypothesized that fitness would indeed exhibit a strong positive correlation with executive function, and that the mile run and the trailmaking test (TMT) part A would having the strongest relationship and the weakest would be between the sit-and-reach and the letter fluency task. Sit ups and TMT part B would have the second highest correlations of the fitness tests and the executive functioning tests respectively. 30 students were accumulated from the SVHS PE classes. Their fitnessgram scores were given by the coaches since it was a normal part of the PE curriculum. Then in class, they took the TMT part A and B, as well as the verbal fluency test. After a correlational test was run, the critical value was determined to be 0.361 at an alpha of 0.05. Push ups proved to have correlations with all but TMT part B, sit ups with only letter fluency, sit-and-reach with no relationships, and the mile run with all but category fluency. This partially supported the main hypothesis that fitness is correlated with executive functions, with 7 of the 16 relationship having supported significance. This research shows the importance of exercise to our growth and development cognitively