Abstract
Environments lacking in stimuli together with ineffective physical education programs can lead to motor illiteracy, causing several adverse effects that could be worsened by unhealthy weight conditions (e.g., obesity). Obesity can be seen as an actual barrier for children and adolescents, especially for affective, behavioral, physical, and cognitive domains. In this context, condensing what the literature proposes could be useful in order to improve the understanding of the best intervention strategies (i.e., proper physical education programs) to manage the adverse effects of motor illiteracy in relation to the obesity barrier. The purpose of this narrative review is to improve the understanding on how physical education programs can counteract the adverse effects of physical illiteracy and obesity barrier across childhood and adolescence. Proper physical education programs should develop motor competence by fostering an individual’s awareness, self-perception, autonomous motivation, and muscular fitness on a realistic scenario (functional task difficulty related to his/her possibilities) in the attempt to counteract the adverse effects of the obesity barrier. Such programs should be designed without overlooking a proper multi teaching style approach.
Highlights
Academic Editor: Jose CarmeloMotor development includes different domains that intersect to each other and influence a child’s motor behavior
Motor behavior as well as its development can improve through continuous practice, which is responsible for constant improvement in the ability to perform a certain motor task
The retrieved articles were further screened for specific inclusion criteria linked to the writing language and scientific soundness. (iv) We summarized and synthesized the overall 51 and 18 articles focusing on the physical literacy domains and teaching style, respectively, and integrated them into the main text, which was organized in sections following a narrative style [18]
Summary
Motor development includes different domains (i.e., physical, mental, and cognitive) that intersect to each other and influence a child’s motor behavior. Obesity and overweight represent a real epidemic in the youth population, the information on how motor development and motor behavior evolve over the course of pre-adolescence and adolescence is still fragmented and unclear, especially in the context of motor literacy domains (affective, behavioral, physical, and cognitive), teaching style, and training intervention In this context, bringing some order by condensing what the literature proposes could be useful in order to improve the understanding of the whole phenomenon by trying to give qualitative-based indications (over quantitative) to clinicians and practitioners in the attempt to promote specific interventions and overcome potential adverse effects of the obesity barrier. The purpose of this narrative review is to empirically improve the understanding of how physical educations programs (based on motor development) can overpass potential adverse effects of motor illiteracy in relation to the obesity barrier across childhood and adolescence
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