Purpose: High-intensity interval training (HIIT) has emerged as a time-efficient strategy to improve children’s and adolescents’ health-related fitness in comparison to traditional training methods. However, little is known regarding the effects on cognitive function and mental health. Therefore, the aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the effect of HIIT on cognitive function (basic information processing, executive function) and mental health (well-being, ill-being) outcomes for children and adolescents. Methods: A systematic search was conducted, and studies were eligible if they 1) included a HIIT protocol, 2) examined cognitive function or mental health outcomes, and 3) examined children or adolescents (5–18 yr). Separate meta-analyses were conducted for acute and chronic studies, with potential moderators (i.e., study duration, risk of bias, participant age, cognitive demand, and study population) also explored. Results: A total of 22 studies were included in the review. In acute studies, small to moderate effects were found for executive function (standardized mean difference [SMD], 0.50, 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.03–0.98; P = 0.038) and affect (SMD, 0.33; 95% CI, 0.05–0.62; P = 0.020), respectively. For chronic studies, small significant effects were found for executive function (SMD, 0.31; 95% CI, 0.15–0.76, P < 0.001), well-being (SMD, 0.22; 95% CI, 0.02–0.41; P = 0.029), and ill-being (SMD, −0.35; 95% CI, −0.68 to −0.03; P = 0.035). Conclusions: Our review provides preliminary review evidence suggesting that participation in HIIT can improve cognitive function and mental health in children and adolescents. Because of the small number of studies and large heterogeneity, more high-quality research is needed to confirm these findings.

Engaging in regular physical activity can have substantial cognitive and academic benefits for children, and is generally promoted for its beneficial effects on children’s physical and mental health. Although embodied cognition research has convincingly shown the integral relationship of the human body and mind, in schools physical activity and cognitive activity are typically treated as unrelated processes. Consequently, most physical activities used are neither sufficiently relevant for nor fully integrated into the learning tasks. In reviewing the literature regarding the integration of physical activity into education to promote cognition and learning, two main lines of research emerged: exercise and cognition research vs. embodied cognition research. In this narrative review, we describe these two separately evolved schools of thought, highlighting their differences and commonalities. In categorising the existing studies on a 2 × 2 matrix, concerning the two main categories of relevance for and integration into the learning task, it becomes clear where the different foci lie, and how both lines of research could profit from learning from each other. Finally, a new instructional model that integrates task-relevant physical activities into the cognitive/learning task is proposed to inform both further research and educational practice.