The relationship between active travel to school and health-related fitness in children and adolescents: a systematic review

Table 2 Summary of studies examining the relationship between ATS and HRF in youth

Benefits	Associated with ATS		Not associated with ATS	Summary coding^a
	Reference no.	Assoc. (-/+)^b	Reference no.	n/N (%)^c	Assoc. (-/+/?)^d
Weight status/body composition	[19, 8]^e,[20, 30, 43, 31, 23]^e,[38, 39]^f,[40, 42, 25]	-	[21, 26, 22, 35, 36, 27, 34, 24, 41, 37, 15, 28], [29]	12/25 (48%)	?
Cardiorespiratory fitness	[15]^g,[32]^g,[33]^g,[29]	+	[25]	4/5 (80%)	+
Muscular fitness	[15]	+		1/1 (100%)	?
Flexibility	[15]^h	+		1/1(100%)	?

Note. ATS = active travel to school; A positive or negative association was noted if at least one component of ATS was associated with the HRF component
^aSummary code provides an overall summary of the findings for each relationship.
^bAssociation shows the direction of the individual association.
^cN = number of studies that examined and reported possible associations between ATS and HRF component, n = number of studies that support the relationship.
^dAssociation for overall findings for each relationship for high quality studies. If 60-100% of high quality studies (≥ 4) found a relationship between ATS and HRF component, the result was coded as having strong evidence for a positive association (++) or negative association (--). If < 4 studies available the relationship was coded as indeterminate (?).
^eRelationship for boys only.
^fRelationship for girls only.
^gRelationship between CRF and cycling.
^hCyclists had better flexibility than walkers and those who used PTS.

ISSN: 1479-5868