Abstract
<p>The aims of this study were to analyze age and gender differences for health-related fitness, physical activity and gross motor coordination level in Albanian children. Data consisted of a cross-sectional study of 1176 children between first and fourth grade elementary school (618 boys and 558 girls) aged 7-10 years old). Anthropometrics (body mass and height, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, % body fat), level of gross motor coordination (Korperkoordinationstest fur Kinder, KTK) and physical activity by questionnaire (PAQ-C) were assessed. Gross motor coordination and physical activity level increased until 9 years of age and then declined. Significant gender differences (P ≤ 0.05) were found for body mass, BMI and waist circumference where boys were heavier, had higher BMI scores and had greater values in waist circumference measurement then girls. Data obtained from this study showed that boys and girls in all age group fell into the normal level of physical activity. The results from this investigation study reveal strong evidence that children in Albania show motor difficulties in everyday skills (moderate motor disorder-31.2% and severe motor disorder-8%. </p><p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0994/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>
Highlights
IntroductionThere is an increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity among children in Europe (Ogden et al, 2006) especially Eastern Europe and Middle east region that had the highest prevalence of overweight children (Kelishadi, 2007)
The children that were categorized at normal level represented only 59.3% of the entire sample, while almost 39% of the sample participated in the study were categorized below the normal level, having probably moderate motor disorder (31.2%) and severe motor disorder (8%)
This study produced results which corroborate the findings of the previous work in this field by Martins et al (2010) which found in their study that boys and girls show increases in body mass index (BMI) means with advancing age Significant gender differences (P ≤ 0.05) were found for body mass, BMI and waist circumference where boys were heavier, had higher BMI scores and had greater values in waist circumference measurement girls except one age group
Summary
There is an increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity among children in Europe (Ogden et al, 2006) especially Eastern Europe and Middle east region that had the highest prevalence of overweight children (Kelishadi, 2007) It appears that gross motor coordination plays a crucial role in children participation on physical activity. Recent evidence suggests that a very important role as a predictor in increasing physical activity participation plays the child motor skill and coordination level (Lopes et al, 2011). A prediction of body fat from a population perspective is BMI, widely used in scientific research as an indirect estimate to define obesity in children and adolescents Other anthropometric measurement such as skin-fold and waist circumference are used in the population based studies. The present study was designed to analyze age and gender differences (aged 7-10 yrs) for health-related fitness, physical activity and gross motor coordination level in Albanian children
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