Reference Normative Values For Aspects Of Skill-Related Physical Fitness In Active Children And Adolescents

ObjectiveTo develop sex-specific and age-specific normative values for the nine Eurofit tests in European children and adolescents aged 9–17 years.MethodsA systematic review was undertaken to identify papers that explicitly reported descriptive results for at least one of nine Eurofit tests (measuring balance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, muscular power, flexibility, speed, speed-agility and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF)) on children and adolescents. Data were included on apparently healthy (free from known disease/injury) children and adolescents aged 9–17 years. Following harmonisation for methodological variation where appropriate, pseudodata were generated using Monte Carlo simulation, with population-weighted sex-specific and age-specific normative centiles generated using the Lambda Mu Sigma (LMS) method. Sex-specific and age-specific differences were expressed as standardised differences in means, with the percentage of children and adolescents with healthy CRF estimated at the sex-age level.ResultsNorms were displayed as tabulated centiles and as smoothed centile curves for the nine Eurofit tests. The final dataset included 2 779 165 results on children and adolescents from 30 European countries, extracted from 98 studies. On average, 78% of boys (95% CI 72% to 85%) and 83% of girls (95% CI 71% to 96%) met the standards for healthy CRF, with the percentage meeting the standards decreasing with age. Boys performed substantially (standardised differences >0.2) better than girls on muscular strength, muscular power, muscular endurance, speed-agility and CRF tests, but worse on the flexibility test. Physical fitness generally improved at a faster rate in boys than in girls, especially during the teenage years.ConclusionThis study provides the largest and most geographically representative sex-specific and age-specific European normative values for children and adolescents, which have utility for health and fitness screening, profiling, monitoring and surveillance.

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Percentiles and Principal Component Analysis of Physical Fitness From a Big Sample of Children and Adolescents Aged 6-18 Years: The DAFIS Project

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.627834 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Eliseo Iglesias-Soler ◽

María Rúa-Alonso ◽

Jessica Rial-Vázquez ◽

Jose Ramón Lete-Lasa ◽

Iván Clavel ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Physical Fitness ◽

Children And Adolescents ◽

Age Groups ◽

Additive Models ◽

Normative Values ◽

Regional Government ◽

Height Ratio ◽

Number Of Components ◽

Percentile Curves ◽

Waist To Height Ratio

Assessing physical fitness has emerged as a proxy of the health status of children and adolescents and therefore as relevant from a public health point of view. DAFIS is a project included in Plan Galicia Saudable (Healthy Galicia Plan) of the regional government of Galicia (Spain). DAFIS consists of an on-line software devoted to record the results of a standard physical fitness protocol carried out as a part of the physical education curriculum. The aims of this study were: to obtain normative values of physical fitness of the Galician school population evaluated in the DAFIS project, and to identify a reduced number of components and tests able to capture a significant amount of the variability in the physical fitness of children and adolescents. From an initial sample of 27784 records, 15287 cases (7543 males, 7744 females) were considered after filtering. Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale and Shape were used for obtaining percentile curves and tables for each sex. Furthermore, a principal components analysis was performed, selecting the number of components by applying the Kaiser’s rule and selecting a subset of variables considering the correlation between each variable and the components. Percentile curves and normative values are reported for each test and sex. Physical fitness was better in boys than in girls throughout age groups, except for flexibility that was consistently higher in girls. Two main components were detected throughout age groups: the first one representing body composition and partially cardiorespiratory fitness and the second one muscular fitness. For boys and girls, waist to height ratio had the highest correlations with the first component in four out of six age groups. The highest correlation with the second component, was most frequently observed for the handgrip test both in boys and girls (four out of six age groups). This study provides evidence about the utility of school community actions like DAFIS aimed to track the health-related fitness of children and adolescents. The results suggest that fat mass distribution (i.e., waist to height ratio and waist circumference) and muscular performance (mainly handgrip) concentrate a high proportion physical fitness variance.

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Physical fitness as a moderator in the relationship between adiposity and cardiometabolic risk factors in children and adolescents

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness ◽

10.23736/s0022-4707.20.11130-7 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 60 (12) ◽

Author(s):

Caroline Brand ◽

Ana P. Sehn ◽

Anelise R. Gaya ◽

Jorge Mota ◽

Javier Brazo-Sayavera ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Risk Factors ◽

Physical Fitness ◽

Children And Adolescents ◽

Cardiometabolic Risk ◽

Cardiometabolic Risk Factors ◽

The Relationship

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Normative values of incremental shuttle walk test in children and adolescents: an observational study

International Journal of Pharma and Bio Sciences ◽

10.22376/ijpbs.2017.8.4.b478-483 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 8 (4) ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

VISHNU VARDHAN ◽

TUSHAR PALEKAR ◽

PRIYANKA DHUKE ◽

GAURANG BAXI

Keyword(s):

Observational Study ◽

Children And Adolescents ◽

Normative Values ◽

Walk Test

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Active Video Games for Improving Mental Health and Physical Fitness—An Alternative for Children and Adolescents during Social Isolation: An Overview

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18041641 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (4) ◽

pp. 1641 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Isis Kelly dos Santos ◽

Rafaela Catherine da Silva Cunha de Medeiros ◽

Jason Azevedo de Medeiros ◽

Paulo Francisco de Almeida-Neto ◽

Dianne Cristina Souza de Sena ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Video Games ◽

Physical Fitness ◽

Children And Adolescents ◽

Social Isolation ◽

Systematic Reviews ◽

Cochrane Library ◽

Active Video Games ◽

Moderate Quality ◽

Active Video

The aim of this study was to synthesize the evidence on the effects of active video games (AVGs) on mental health, physical fitness and body composition of children and adolescents. A search was conducted in the following databases: PubMed; MEDLINE (by Ovid); SportDiscus, Cochrane library systematic reviews (CENTRAL) and EMBASE with no language restrictions during October 2020. Reviews on the use of AVGs were included in the study. We use the AMSTAR (A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews) scale to analyze the methodological quality of the studies. Seventeen systematic reviews and meta-analyzes were included on the effects of AVGs with 30 to 4728 children and adolescents of both sexes with ages ranging from 6 to 19 years. In five studies, the population was overweight or obese. Regarding the quality, 12 studies were of moderate quality, two had high quality, two had low quality and one showed very low quality. The analyzed data indicate that the use of AVGs with a frequency of 1 to 3 times a week with durations of between 10 and 90 min per day shows positive effects on mental health and physical functioning. There was moderate quality evidence that AVGs can result in benefits for self-esteem, increased energy expenditure, physical activity and reduced body mass index in children and adolescents who used AVGs in the home environment. Further research is needed on this tool to help in the process of social isolation and consequently in promoting health and well-being.

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