Physical education (PE) is acknowledged as a relevant context for holistic child and youth development promotion. However, interventional research mostly builds on individual theories focused on specific outcome domains. This study presents a multisport enriched PE intervention that capitalizes on the intersection of different theory-based approaches to motor, cognitive and socio-emotional skills development promotion. With a cross-over design, 181 fifth graders, coming from a past class-randomized trial of enriched or traditional PE in their 1st–3rd grade, were stratified (based on their previous PE experience) and class-randomized to multisport enriched PE or control group. They completed pre-post assessments in motor and sport skills, cool (inhibition, working memory) and hot (decision making) executive functions, prosocial (empathy, cooperation) and antisocial (quick-temperedness, disruptiveness) behaviors. Children in the enriched PE group showed advantages in motor and prosocial skills after the intervention, which were linked by a mediation path, and an interactive effect of past and actual PE experience on decision making but no differential effects on other variables. The results suggest that a PE intervention designed with an integrative theory base, although not allowing disentangling the contribution of individual components to its efficacy, may help pursue benefits in motor and non-motor domains relevant to whole-child development.

In this overview, we discuss the internal and external environmental factors associated with cognitive and psycho-emotional well-being in the context of physical activity and Mindful Movement. Our key argument is that improved cognitive and emotional functions associated with mental well-being can be achieved by an external, Mindful Movement-based environment training called Quadrato Motor Training (QMT). QMT is a structured sensorimotor training program aimed at improving coordination, attention, and emotional well-being through behavioral, electrophysiological, neuroanatomical, and molecular changes. In accordance with this argument, we first describe the general neurobiological mechanisms underpinning emotional states and emotion regulation. Next, we review the relationships between QMT, positive emotional state, and increased emotion regulation, and discuss the neurobiological mechanisms underlying these relationships. We consider the relationships between motion, emotion, and cognition, and highlight the need for integrated training paradigms involving these three trajectories. Such training paradigms provide cognitively engaging exercises to improve emotion regulation, which in turn affects adaptive behaviors. Finally, we address the broader implications of improving cognitive and emotional functioning through Mindful Movement training for environmental research and public health.

Considering injuries as a serious problem which affects player availability and performance, soccer clubs have strong incentives to develop and implement various injury prevention programs (IPPs). The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to examine, consolidate and summarize the research on the effects of various IPPs on injury incidence in youth soccer players. A search was conducted in Cochrane Library, PubMed (MEDLINE), Scopus and Web of Science. A total of 3827 records were identified through database searches which were filtered to 19 studies that met the selection and inclusion criteria. The search was concluded in December 2024. A methodological quality scale was also employed as a valuable tool to assess the risk of bias in the selected studies. A total sample of 28,200 youth soccer players were analyzed in the included studies. 12 studies reported positive effects of the IPP on overall injury incidence, while four studies found no significant effects. Moreover, most studies showed increasing effectiveness with higher adherence or compliance. Overall, injury prevention programs were shown to significantly decrease the likelihood of injury (RR = 0.615 [95% CI = 0.512; 0.739]; z = -5.20; p < 0.001). Subgroup analyses conducted for age (Q (1) = 2.84, p = 0.092), duration of intervention (Q (1) = 1.87, p = 0.172), type of injury prevention program (Q (1) = 0.00, p = 0.955) did not reveal significant differences in injury incidence, suggesting that the overall effect of injury prevention programs is not significantly influenced by these factors. This systematic review and meta-analysis suggest that different injury prevention programs are likely effective in reducing injury risk and lowering the injuries among youth soccer players, suggesting their potential protective effect in injury prevention.

Psychophysical well-being can be supported during development by the integration of extra-curricular activities in scholastic settings. These activities can be implemented in different forms, ranging from physical activities to sitting meditation practices. Considering that both such activities are thought to affect children’s psychophysical development, a movement-based meditation that combines the two approaches−in the form of a short daily activity−could represent a powerful tool to promote healthy physical and mental development. Consequently, the current pilot study aimed to examine the effect of short daily school-based sitting and movement meditation trainings on creativity and spatial cognition. Utilizing a crossover design, we evaluated their feasibility and efficacy at different ages among children (n = 50) in 5th to 8th grade. We observed that 5 weeks of daily training in sitting and movement meditation techniques improved children’s cognition differently. Specifically, younger children showed greater creativity and better spatial cognition following the movement-based meditation, while older children showed greater enhancement in these areas following sitting meditation training. This suggests that training can affect children’s cognition differently depending on their developmental stage. We discuss these results within the framework of embodied and grounded cognition theories. Information on feasibility and age-related effect sizes derived from the current study paves the way for future well-powered larger-scale efficacy studies on different forms of school-based interventions to cognitive development promotion.