Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Motor skill proficiency has shown to be a key predictor of children’s engagement and enjoyment of regular physical activity. Recent evidence suggests that obese children have increased difficulties in the planning, initiation and control of motor skills compared to their normal weighted peers (D’Hondt et al. 2009, Gentier et al. 2013). These difficulties often manifest themselves as slower or less efficient performance of motor skills. This could impede the performance of everyday activities as well as affect their willingness to engage in physical activity. However the majority of research focuses on gross motor skill performance despite fine motor skills being prerequisites to many activities of daily living.

Methods: A sample of a 46 children were equally divided into two groups (obese (OB) vs normal weight (NW)) based on their BMI calculated using the IOTF cut points for children (Cole et al. 2000). Each group were equally matched for gender (11 male and 12 Female) and age (M=9.101 S.D.=1.832 and M=9.103 S.D.=1.746). The children were tested using the Fine Motor Skills Composite of the Bruininks Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOT-2). The children’s raw scores were converted according to the manual into standardised scores based on normative data.

Results: The OB group (M=46.13, S.D.=9.16) was found to score significantly lower (P<0.05) than their NW (M=52.04, S.D.=5.36) peers using the standard scores of the Fine Motor Skill Composite. This score represents whether a child possesses the expected level of fine motor skill for their age/gender.

Conclusion: The assumption that mass alone is responsible for these differences between BMI groups is not sufficient as additional body mass would only have a limited effect on fine motor skill. The above findings suggest the existence of a deficit in how OB children integrate and process sensory information compared to their normal weighted peers.

Disclosure: This work was supported by the Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship Award 2014.