Exercise snacks in university settings: a mini review of daily physical activity and sedentary behavior among university students
5 affiliations
- 1College of Education for the Future, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai, China
- 2Faculty of Health Sciences and Sports, Macao Polytechnic University, Macao, China
- 3College of Physical Education and Sports, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
- 4School of Physical Education, Guangdong University of Education, Guangzhou, China
- 5Physical Education Center, Nanfang College·Guangzhou, Guangzhou, China
Abstract
University students spend much of their daily life in classrooms, online learning, screen use, library study, dormitory routines, and campus commuting, making insufficient physical activity and prolonged sitting important concerns for health promotion in higher education. Exercise snacks, defined here as brief, repeated, low-barrier bouts of physical activity that can be embedded in ordinary routines, have attracted growing attention in exercise health, public health, and sedentary behavior research. Compared with physical education courses or structured exercise, exercise snacks use short gaps in learning and daily life, for example through brisk walking, stair climbing, dynamic stretching, body-weight exercise, or brief moderate-to-vigorous activity, to increase movement opportunities and interrupt prolonged sitting. This mini review adopts an integrative thematic approach to synthesize work on exercise snacks, physical activity snacks, brief intermittent physical activity, active breaks, sedentary behavior interruption, incidental physical activity, Brain Breaks, and physical activity among university students. It discusses conceptual boundaries, potential effects, contextual conditions, and future directions for translating exercise snacks into university settings. The literature suggests that exercise snacks should be viewed as a supplementary strategy alongside physical education and structured exercise. They may help increase daily physical activity, reduce or interrupt prolonged sitting, and improve the distribution of activity across the day. However, the field is marked by inconsistent definitions, a limited body of university-specific research, scarce evidence from real campus contexts, and insufficient objective measurement. Future studies should define exercise snacks operationally for higher education, prioritize safe, feasible low- to moderate-intensity activities, test interventions within real timetables and campus spaces, and combine wearable devices, smartphone step counts, and activity logs to assess physical activity and sedentary behavior. Exercise snacks in university settings should therefore not be framed as a replacement for physical education, but as a low-cost, accessible, context-embedded pathway for promoting daily physical activity.
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BibTeX
@article{wang2026exercise,
title = {{Exercise snacks in university settings: a mini review of daily physical activity and sedentary behavior among university students}},
author = {XiaoTian Wang and JingLin Wu and Liang Heng and HaoRan Li and ZeYu Zou},
journal = {Frontiers in Psychology},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1928216},
url = {https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1928216},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Exercise snacks in university settings: a mini review of daily physical activity and sedentary behavior among university students
AU - XiaoTian Wang
AU - JingLin Wu
AU - Liang Heng
AU - HaoRan Li
AU - ZeYu Zou
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/26
JO - Frontiers in Psychology
DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1928216
UR - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1928216
AB - University students spend much of their daily life in classrooms, online learning, screen use, library study, dormitory routines, and campus commuting, making insufficient physical activity and prolonged sitting important concerns for health promotion in higher education. Exercise snacks, defined here as brief, repeated, low-barrier bouts of physical activity that can be embedded in ordinary routines, have attracted growing attention in exercise health, public health, and sedentary behavior research. Compared with physical education courses or structured exercise, exercise snacks use short gaps in learning and daily life, for example through brisk walking, stair climbing, dynamic stretching, body-weight exercise, or brief moderate-to-vigorous activity, to increase movement opportunities and interrupt prolonged sitting. This mini review adopts an integrative thematic approach to synthesize work on exercise snacks, physical activity snacks, brief intermittent physical activity, active breaks, sedentary behavior interruption, incidental physical activity, Brain Breaks, and physical activity among university students. It discusses conceptual boundaries, potential effects, contextual conditions, and future directions for translating exercise snacks into university settings. The literature suggests that exercise snacks should be viewed as a supplementary strategy alongside physical education and structured exercise. They may help increase daily physical activity, reduce or interrupt prolonged sitting, and improve the distribution of activity across the day. However, the field is marked by inconsistent definitions, a limited body of university-specific research, scarce evidence from real campus contexts, and insufficient objective measurement. Future studies should define exercise snacks operationally for higher education, prioritize safe, feasible low- to moderate-intensity activities, test interventions within real timetables and campus spaces, and combine wearable devices, smartphone step counts, and activity logs to assess physical activity and sedentary behavior. Exercise snacks in university settings should therefore not be framed as a replacement for physical education, but as a low-cost, accessible, context-embedded pathway for promoting daily physical activity.
SN - 1664-1078
ER -