Evaluation of a Nine Month Yoga Program for Children

An increasing number of schools are providing a yoga program for their students across the United States. Evaluating the efficacy and benefits of these programs is a new area of scholarship. Little is no known about which programs are most effective and also what the specific benefits of yoga for children in schools are. The length and frequency of these yoga programs varies greatly from school to school and program to program. This study evaluated a nine month yoga program for youth who participated in a program twice each week for one hour. The yoga program also included educational lessons on nutrition, and environmental health in addition to the physical practice of yoga poses and breathing techniques. Well-being was measured using the a modified version of the PANAS which measures positive and negative affect (mood) for youth. A non-experimental research design was used for this study as no control group was assigned in this study. A repeated measures ANCOVA was conducted to measure the changes over time with gender and age acting as covariates for this study and the outcome measures being postive affect and also negative affect. Significant improvements (p < .05) were measured for positive affect over time for the group that practiced yoga during the nine month program. Yoga may improve positive affect in children in schools and decrease negative affect. However, a control group and random assignment needs to be established to more closely examine the possiblity of any causality between yoga and mood in children.