Abstract
Whereas inherently vulnerable structure of both a child's and an adolescent's foot, characteristic for its dynamic, developmental stage, is particularly exposed to numerous environmental factors, excessive body weight gain may potentially become a crucial causal factor, bringing on a cascade of adverse effects throughout the body, e.g. disorders of the skeletal-articular system, gait alterations, abnormally excessive loading of the plantar zones of the foot, and consequently serious postural defects, especially in later life. Since obesity, aptly dubbed the scourge of the 21st c., directly impacts the way the foot biomechanics are developed, whereupon the actual paradigm of foot loading becomes subject to numerous, adverse modifications, the present study focused on gaining an in-depth insight into prevalent association of BMI, adipose tissue content in body composition, and the actual distribution of foot loads in the school-aged children. Since body weight, the simplest anthropometric indicator, is actually non-indicative of the proportion of adipose tissue within body composition, a number of modern, non-invasive diagnostic methods were applied by the investigators to have this deficit effectively addressed, inclusive of comprehensively mapping out the actual load distribution in the plantar zones of the foot.
Highlights
The World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledges obesity to be the most common metabolic disease, aptly dubbing it a global scourge of the 21st c
Excessive body weight appreciably contributes to abnormal motor development, agility, and overall coordination of movements, as well as adversely affects the development of the skeletal-articular system, which may result in postural defects
Excessive body weight may be a crucial causal factor in various abnormalities encountered in the feet, i.e. abnormal foot loads[4,5,6]
Summary
The World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledges obesity to be the most common metabolic disease, aptly dubbing it a global scourge of the 21st c. This metabolic phenomenon has affected children and teenagers. There are many studies corroborating detrimental effect of increased body weight on foot loads and attendant deformities[4,5,6]. Cousins et al.[10], while examining overweight and obese children observed that these children put more load on the metatarsal, in particular onto 2–5 metatarsal bones, than their peers with normal body weight. A stabilometric platform was used as a research tool of choice for assessing the distribution of foot loads in the plantar part of the foot[13]
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