Cardiorespiratory fitness responses to a Daily Mile program in overweight youth from a low-income Colombian school

Abstract

Abstract This study evaluated the effects of a 10-week Daily Mile (DM) intervention on physical fitness and plantar pressure in overweight and obese adolescents from a low-income school in Colombia. A parallel group experimental pilot study was conducted with adolescents aged 11–17 from a Colombian school. Participants were randomly assigned to an intervention group (IG, n  = 21) that performed DM three days/week in addition to the usual curriculum, or to a control group (CG, n  = 24). Outcomes included anthropometry, blood pressure, muscular fitness, baropodometry, and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF). A hierarchical multiple linear regression was used to assess the intervention’s effect on CRF.No significant differences between groups were observed in anthropometry, blood pressure, muscular fitness, or baropodometry variables. In contrast, CRF significantly improved in the IG, with an average increase of ∼ 150 m in the Shuttle Run Test compared to controls (CG: 517.61 (71.93) vs. IG: 400.00 (182.29) m, p  = 0.028). Hierarchical regression confirmed this effect (β = 149.88; CI 95% 55.8–210.0, p  = 0.002). In this pilot study, a 10-week DM intervention resulted in short-term improvements in CRF among overweight and obese adolescents from a low-income Colombian school. These findings provide preliminary evidence of the feasibility of implementing DM within the school routine and support its potential to elicit favorable cardiorespiratory adaptations, warranting further investigation in larger and longer-term studies in this context.