Abstract
PURPOSE: Although the interactive effects related to physical activity (PA) and health-related physical fitness have been well documented (Strong et al., 2005), such inquiries among underserved urban children remain largely unexplored. This study was designed to examine the relationship between urban elementary school children's health-related physical fitness and PA participation, as well as gender and grade differences of these study variables. METHODS: Participants were 196 third through fifth grade students (112 boys, 84 girls; Mage = 10.3 yrs) from an urban elementary school. The majority of participants (73%) were children of Latino immigrant families; 89% of them came from economically disadvantaged families. At the beginning of the school year, participants'physical fitness was measured through1-mile run (an indicator of cardiorespiratory fitness); body mass index (BMI), and percent of body fat (PBF) as measured by skinfold. They then responded to the self-reported SPARK activity checklist as a measure of their weekly PA levels, and the SPARK data was calculated into the MET scores (Barnara etc. 2000). RESULTS: Correlation analysis yielded that children's BMI and PBF was negatively related to 1-mile run score (p<.01). 1-mile run score was positively associated with weekly PA levels (p<.05). Regression analysis further indicated that children's 1-mile run score was the only significant predictor of their weekly PA participation (B=.16, p<.05). The 2-way MANOVA revealed significant main effects for gender (F =6.98, p<.01) and grade (F =6.40, p<.01). CONCLUSION: The findings suggested that urban children's 1-mile run score emerged as the positive predictor of their weekly PA participation. Additionally, boys had significantly lower PBF and performed better on 1-mile run than girls. Fourth graders had lower PBF yet performed worse on 1-mile run than fifth graders. Fifth graders were more physically active than the other graders.
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