The impact of cardiorespiratory fitness on cognitive function among active and sedentary high school students

ABSTRACT Background: During adolescence, important changes in the brain happen as attention, memory, and executive control improve. It is now evident that cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) helps improve these body functions. There is not much information in South Asia since such cultural factors may be linked to the way people live and learn. The main goal was to researchers in this study looked at how CRF affected mental abilities in both active and sedentary high school-going children from Northern India. Methodology: A cross-sectional and mixed-methods design was used, including youth students aged 14–18 years (n = 215) characterized as active (n = 108) and sedentary (n = 107). Via the 20-m shuttle run test, the participants’ CRF was determined by measuring and recording their maximal oxygen uptake (VO 2 ) max. Cognitive functions, including attention, working memory (forward only), and executive function, were measured with the d2 test of attention, digit span (forward/backward), and trail making tests (TMT-A/B). The data were checked using t-tests and Pearson correlations to find the differences. Semi-structured interviews (n = 24) were used to collect the qualitative data, which were thematically analyzed. Results: The results show that the active group performed substantially better in all the assessment parameters and had a significantly higher VO 2 max (P < 0.001). VO2 max and TMT completion time were negatively affected by good attention and memory, this suggests that better attention and memory lead to quicker times on the TMT. When qualitative validation was done, it was discovered that active students concentrated better, felt less stressed, and participated in learning more. Conclusion: Studies are starting to prove that better cardiovascular fitness in adolescents may help them do better on mental tasks than their peers with less fitness. Even though research is mostly done in small groups, current studies indicate that being active helps teenagers’ brains and school performance. The findings show that schools should introduce and keep up with planned physical activity programs as an important part of developing students mentally and academically. Future research should use methods that span many years and include the factors from the mind and body to find out how physical fitness and mental health are linked.