Psychomotor Limitations of Overweight and Obese Five-Year-Old Children: Influence of Body Mass Indices on Motor, Perceptual, and Social-Emotional Skills.

Pedro Gil Madrona,Sonia Romero Martínez,Nieves Sáez-Gallego,Xavier Ordóñez Camacho

doi:10.3390/ijerph16030427

Abstract

The present research aimed to study the psycho-motor performance of five-year-old children with different body mass indices (BMI). A total of 694 pre-school children in the province of Albacete-Spain participated. Their performance in motor, perceptual, and social-emotional skills was analyzed using a standardized observation sheet (Checklist of Psychomotor Activities—CPA) and then compared according to their BMI using non-parametric statistical methods (Mann-Whitney test). Separate comparisons were made for girls and boys. Results indicated significant differences in performance amongst the groups of girls in all the motor and perceptual activities, and in the social relationships component of the social-emotional factor. These differences seemed to penalize motor activities, perceptual skills, and social relationships in overweight and obese girls compared to normal weight girls. In the case of boys, there were significant differences in laterality and visual-motor coordination (favoring overweight boys). Differences in respiratory control were also found, but in this case, penalizing obese boys compared to normal weight boys. Knowledge of possible psychomotor limitations in obese children could allow psychologists and healthcare professionals to design more focused interventions.

Highlights

Child development is a multidimensional evolutionary process through which human beings acquire increasing autonomy until they reach adulthood
Observing the results obtained according to gender, it can be concluded that there are significant differences between the body mass indices (BMI) groups in all the physical-motor and perceptual skills in the case of girls, whereas amongst the groups of boys, differences were found in only some isolated aspects
The main finding of this study is that, in the case of girls, there were significant differences in task performance according to BMI across all the psychomotor variables analyzed

Summary

Introduction

Child development is a multidimensional evolutionary process through which human beings acquire increasing autonomy until they reach adulthood. Public Health 2019, 16, 427; doi:10.3390/ijerph16030427 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

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Conclusion