1Research Sandwell, Sandwell Council House, West Bromwich, UK; 2Environment House, Sandwell MBC, West Bromwich, UK; 3Department of Public Health, Sandwell PCT NHS Trust, West Bromwich, UK; 4Department of Paediatrics, Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust, West Bromwich, UK.
In recent times, there has been concern about the rising prevalence of obesity in children. Physical fitness, defined as a set of attributes possessed by individuals which relates to the ability to perform physical activity, is a key pathway to healthy living. As part of a larger programme called ‘Triple S’, (designed to underpin a schools health related project) we undertook field-based physical testing of 1733 (7 yr olds) (902 M & 831 F) from 49 primary schools. It consisted of tests of balance, power & expressive strength, speed & agility, hand/eye co-ordination, anaerobic output, endurance & flexibility. The impact of ethnicity, socioeconomic status (SE), sex & BMI on fitness was studied.
Results: About 7.8% M & 9.9% F were obese. Obese children had poorer performance scores (P<0.05). Boys performed better than girls overall (P<0.01) specifically on the agility run task (P<0.005) & the endurance task (P<0.01). SE had a significant effect on fitness for anaerobic (P<0.01) & flexibility (P<0.05) tasks. Children of black or mixed ethnic group showed the best performance across all tasks. Knowledge of the physical fitness of a child may help design individualised programme that may help increase their level of physical activity.
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Endocrine Abstracts
ISSN 1470-3947 (print) | ISSN 1479-6848 (online)
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