Italian Physical Fitness Decline: A True Fact or a Mindset? A 10-Year Observational Perspective Study

Secular trends in physical fitness of rural Chinese children and adolescents aged 7-18 years from 1985 to 2019

The main purpose of the study was to evaluate the secular trends in physical fitness of Chinese rural children and adolescents aged 7-18 from 1985 to 2019. The speed, muscular strength, explosive power fitness, cardiorespiratory fitness, and flexibility were investigated by National Survey on Students' Constitution and Health in 1985, 2000, 2010 and 2019. During the period 1985-2000, the physical fitness of Chinese rural children and adolescents improved except for flexibility, and almost all of them reached the maximum increase rate. During the period 2000-2010, in addition to the improvement of flexibility, other fitness showed downward trends, and the decline ranges were large. During the period 2010-2019, the speed of boys rebounded, flexibility, explosive power and muscular strength continued to decrease. Meanwhile, speed, flexibility and muscular strength in girls rebounded, and the explosive power continued to decline. From 2000 to 2019, the body mass index increase accelerated. This study shows that some components of physical fitness of Chinese rural children and adolescents have shown positive trends in recent years, especially for girls and adolescents aged 13-15 years. However, it may also imply inequality between sexes and ages, which provides a reference for the focus of the country's physical fitness and health monitoring and intervention measures.

Mandatory after-school use of step tracker apps improves physical activity, body composition and fitness of adolescents

Previous scientific research on the use of mobile applications to increase physical activity level and improve health among adolescents does not provide conclusive results, one of the main reasons being the lack of adherence to the intervention after the first weeks. For this reason, the main objectives of the research were to determine the changes produced by a compulsory ten-week period of after-school intervention with mobile step-tracking applications on adolescents' health; and the final objective to compare the benefits obtained by each of the mobile applications. To meet the objectives, a longitudinal study with non-probability convenience sampling was proposed. The sample consisted of 400 adolescents from two public compulsory secondary schools in the Region of Murcia, Spain, whose body composition, level of physical activity, adherence to the Mediterranean diet, and physical fitness were measured. The SPSS statistical software was used for statistical analysis. The results showed that adolescents in the experimental group showed a higher level of physical activity and better body composition and physical fitness variables after the intervention compared to the control group, with differences between the different applications used. In conclusion, this research shows the usefulness of mobile applications if they are used in a compulsory way after school hours. The relevance of these results for policymakers lies in the fact that they provide statistical data on the usefulness of mobile applications as an educational resource, being an option to make up for the lack of sufficient physical education teaching hours to meet global physical activity recommendations.

Are anthropometric characteristics powerful markers to predict the Cooper Run Test? Actual Caucasian data

Background

Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is a powerful marker of cardiovascular health, especially in youth. Several field tests can provide accurate measurement of CRF, the Cooper Run Test (CRT) is generally preferred by physical education (PE) teachers and trainers. The CRT performance in adolescents has been compared to reference distance values, gender and age but the differences among the anthropometric characteristics of youth has not been evaluated. For these reasons, the aim of this study was to develop reference standards for CRT and evaluate possible correlations between biometric measurements and athletic performance.

Methods

This cross-sectional study involved a total of 9,477 children (4,615 girls) aged 11-14 years, freely recruited from North Italian middle schools. Mass, height and CRT performances were assessed in the morning during PE classes as scheduled (mornings-Monday to Friday). The anthropometric measures were collected at least 20 min before the CRT run test.

Results

We found a better CRT result in boys (p < 0.001), however a smaller SD in girls suggested a more homogeneous aerobic performance for girls (i.e., 371.12 m vs 282.00 m). In addition, the Shapiro-Wilk test showed a low p-value (p < 0.001) but the effect size (0.031 for boys and 0.022 for girls) was small enough that the correction on this parameter allows a practical assumption of normality for the distributions. A visual homoskedastic distribution in both sexes is evident for both body mass index (BMI), mass and VO₂ peak with respect to CRT results. In addition, there were low linear correlation coefficients for both BMI, mass and VO₂ peak compared to the CRT results, with a R2 < 0.5 for every covariate. The only visual heteroskedastic distribution was observed in regression between distance in CRT and age at peak high velocity.

Conclusions

Our findings suggested that anthropometric characteristics are not powerful markers to predict Cooper Run Test results in a well-mixed, unpolarized and unbiased pool of middle school boys and girls. PE teachers and trainers should prefer endurance tests over the use of indirect formulas to predict performance.

The Temporal Association between Body Characteristics and Speed Performance over Twenty-Five Years in Italian Adolescents

Background: Physical fitness (PF) is positively related to skeletal and metabolic health, and it had an inverse relation with obesity. Adolescents with obesity have the worst performance in PF and speed-agility (SA) that contributes to an augmented risk to develop pathologies. To the best of our knowledge, many studies analyzed the trends of obesity and SA separately, but there is a lack of data about SA ability trends in adolescents with obesity. We aimed to investigate SA trends in children with obesity in the last few decades to define the association between body weight and physical performance. Methods: We recruited 3.923 Caucasian children across the period 1985–2010 in the same school in Northern Italy, near Milan. Once a year, at the ages of 11–12- and 13-years-old, we collected anthropometric measures and SA performance. We pooled the data into 5-year-period study waves and then stratified our analysis into test-sex-age BMI-z-score specific groups. Results: We reported an undetermined trend across years. The 4×5 m run test significantly decreased in adolescents with overweight/obesity, while we did not report a decline in 30 m and 60 m run tests. Conclusions: Fitness tests highlighted differences in normal weight compared to overweight/obese children, suggesting that it is crucial to carefully monitor PF capacities through the years.

Speed agility trends in children according to growth

BACKGROUND

Speed agility is considered as the whole assessment of speed of movement, agility and coordination. The 10x4m test has been broadly used to evaluate physical fitness and overall health in children of developmental ages. A myriad of studies have investigated the ecology of speed agility (SA). However, body dimensions are rarely appraised, and this is a weakness because body shapes are affected by growth.

AIM

This study aimed to model SA-specific allometric equations, and develop an approach objectively predictive for performance while controlling for maturity through age at peak height velocity (agePHV).

SUBJECTS AND METHODS

A total of 7317 (3627 girls) children aged 8-11 years were SA-tested. Multiplicative models with allometric body-size components, agePHV, and categorical differences, were implemented to evaluate SA performance.

RESULTS

Model 1 accounted for body-size and shape only, whereas Model 2 included agePHV and Model 3 considered standing broad jump (SBJ) as a surrogate marker for explosive strength. An ectomorphic dominance was revealed across all the models.

CONCLUSION

The explosive strength resulted in influencing SA per height-to-weight ratio. Further, positive exponent of agePHV suggested that the late maturers were likely to show better SA performances. Predictive equations modelled on developmental factors are fundamental to scrutinise performances as valuable health and fitness outcomes in childhood.