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The AVENA Study

David Martínez-Gómez, MSc; Jonatan R. Ruiz, PhD; Sonia Gómez-Martínez, PhD; Palma Chillón, PhD; J. Pablo Rey-López, MSc; Ligia E. Díaz, PhD; Ruth Castillo, PhD; Oscar L. Veiga, PhD; Ascension Marcos, PhD; for the AVENA Study Group

Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2011;165(4):300-305. doi:10.1001/archpediatrics.2010.244

Objective  To examine the associations between active commuting to school and cognitive performance in adolescents.

Design  Cross-sectional study.

Setting  Five cities (Granada, Madrid, Murcia, Santander, and Zaragoza) in Spain.

Participants  A total of 1700 adolescents (892 girls) aged 13 to 18.5 years.

Main Exposures  Mode and duration of transportation to school and participation in extracurricular physical activity were self-reported.

Main Outcome Measures  Cognitive performance (verbal, numeric, and reasoning abilities and an overall score) was measured by the Spanish version of the SRA Test of Educational Ability.

Results  Active commuting to school was associated with better cognitive performance (all P < .05) in girls but not in boys, independent of potential confounders including participation in extracurricular physical activity. In addition, adolescent girls who spent more than 15 minutes actively commuting to school had better scores in 3 of the 4 cognitive performance variables (all P < .05) than those who spent less time actively commuting to school (15 minutes) as well as better scores in all of the cognitive performance variables (all P < .001) than girls inactively commuting.

Conclusion  Active commuting to school and its duration may positively influence cognitive performance in adolescent girls.

Author Affiliations: Immunonutrition Research Group, Department of Metabolism and Nutrition, Institute of Food Science, Technology, and Nutrition, Spanish National Research Council (Mr Martínez-Gómez and Drs Gómez-Martínez, Díaz, and Marcos) and Department of Physical Education, Sport, and Human Movement, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Mr Martínez-Gómez and Dr Veiga), Madrid, Department of Physiology (Dr Ruiz) and Department of Physical Education and Sport, School of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences (Drs Chillón and Castillo), University of Granada, Granada, and School of Health Sciences, University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza (Mr Rey-López), Spain; and Unit for Preventive Nutrition, Department of Biosciences and Nutrition at Novum, Karolinska Institutet, Huddinge, Sweden (Dr Ruiz).

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