Secular Trends in Physical Fitness of Children and Adolescents: A Review of Large-Scale Epidemiological Studies Published after 2006.

Tanja Eberhardt,Annette Worth,Doris Oriwol,Klaus Bös,Lydia Buchal,Claudia Niessner

doi:10.3390/ijerph17165671

Abstract

Physical fitness (PF) of children and adolescents is an important resource for their future health. Population-based studies, however, rarely report secular changes of PF, although monitoring of these is crucial to deriving information for adequate interventions. This review aims to report trends in PF of children and adolescents. A literature search was conducted in PubMed in July 2019. Cohort studies published in English allowing statements to be made on trends in PF by comparing youth between the ages of four and 18 years were included. The review identified 24 studies from 16 countries meeting the inclusion criteria, with an overall sample size of more than 860,000 children and adolescents. Through a standardized quality assessment tool, we classified two studies as strong, 21 as moderate, and only one as weak. We analyzed specific secular trends separately for the five different dimensions: endurance, strength, speed, flexibility, and coordination. The majority of studies report a decline of PF over time; however, a few studies report conflicting results. Performance in endurance, strength, and flexibility decreased over time, whereas there was no consistent trend reported for speed and coordination. Overall, there is no international standard on examining and reporting changes or secular trends in PF of children and adolescents, and comparability of studies is limited due to heterogeneous conditions of conducting and analyzing PF tests. Consequently, standardized and consistent international monitoring should be implemented.

Highlights

Monitoring of physical fitness (PF) in youth is important, because PF is known as one of the most relevant resources for health [1,2,3,4] and is regarded as one of the foundations of an active lifestyle [5].Childhood is a critical period for the development of PF as it lays the foundation for later PF.Young children acquire a wide range of locomotor and object control skills that enable them to learn adaptive, skilled actions and to adjust them flexibly in different contexts
Age, and BMI as relevant confounders of PF, but there are more; socioeconomic status and geographical environment influence the trends in PF as well [14]
There is an overall declining trend when assessing the findings in PF of children and adolescents

Summary

Introduction

Monitoring of physical fitness (PF) in youth is important, because PF is known as one of the most relevant resources for health [1,2,3,4] and is regarded as one of the foundations of an active lifestyle [5].Childhood is a critical period for the development of PF as it lays the foundation for later PF.Young children acquire a wide range of locomotor and object control skills that enable them to learn adaptive, skilled actions and to adjust them flexibly in different contexts. Monitoring of physical fitness (PF) in youth is important, because PF is known as one of the most relevant resources for health [1,2,3,4] and is regarded as one of the foundations of an active lifestyle [5]. PF is the base on which children can build more specific motor skills or develop movement patterns. The development of motor performance either encourages or discourages an individual to engage in physical activity through limiting one’s opportunities [5,6,7,8,9,10]. In Germany, the most commonly used definition was published by Bös [11]. Public Health 2020, 17, 5671; doi:10.3390/ijerph17165671 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

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