and physical fitness of girls 7 to 17 years. Obes Res.A two-fold approach was used to investigate the association between fatness and fitness of girls 7 to 17 years of age: first, age-specific correlations between fatness and measures of health-related and motor fitness, and second, comparisons of fitness levels of girls classified as fat and lean. A representative sample of 6700 between 7 to 17 years was surveyed. Adiposity (fatness) was estimated as the sum of five skinfolds (biceps, triceps, subscapular, suprailiac, medial calf). Physical fitness included health-related items (step test, PWC 170, the sit and reach, sit-ups and leg lifts, flexed arm hang) and motor performance items (standing long jump, vertical jump, arm pull strength, flamingo stand, shuttle run, plate tapping). Age-specific partial correlations between fatness and each fitness item, controlling for stature and weight, were calculated. In addition, in each age group the fattest 5% (presumably the obese) and the leanest 5% were compared on each fitness test. After controlling for stature and weight, subcutaneous fatness accounts for variable percentages of the variance in each fitness item. Estimates for health-related fitness items are: cardiorespiratory endurance -step test (3% to 5%) and PWC 170 1995;3:221-231. Submitted 18%). At the extremes, the fattest girls have generally poorer levels of health-related and motor fitness.
Relationships between motor performance, as measured by various fitness tests, and age at peak height velocity have been studied in a sample of 173 Flemish boys, measured yearly between +/- 13 and +/- 18 years and again as adults at 30 years of age. In addition to correlation studies, comparisons were made between boys with an early, average and late age at peak height velocity. To summarize the successive measurements during adolescence, a longitudinal principal component analysis was carried out. The first component can be interpreted as an average percentile level component. During adolescence, three performance tasks, namely speed of limb movement, explosive strength and static strength, are negatively related to age at peak height velocity; thus early maturers performed significantly better than late maturers. However, between late adolescence and adulthood, a cross-over of the average distance curves between 18 and 30 years of age was noted for almost all motor tasks. The late maturers not only caught up the early maturers, but there were significant differences for explosive strength and functional strength in favour of late maturers. In order to predict performance in adulthood from measures during adolescence, the following hypothesis is suggested: the best results at adulthood are obtained by those men who were already good performers during adolescence and who were late maturers, while the worst results are obtained by poor performers during adolescence who were early maturers.
It is widely believed that active participation in sports during youth is an important prerequisite for adult involvement in sports. However, data from reliable longitudinal studies tracking patterns of sports participation from youth into adulthood are scarce. This study addresses the leisure-time sports participation of adult women, 32—41 years of age, from a lifetime sports socialization perspective. Some 20 years after they participated in 1979 in the Leuven Growth Study on Flemish Girls, 257 female adults participated again in a comprehensive questionnaire and face-to-face interview. Inter-age correlations for sports participation are calculated from adolescence into adulthood. Logistic regression modeling and structural equation modeling are used to explain individual differences in adult sports participation. Outcomes indicate that tracking of sports involvement between late adolescence and adulthood is moderately high ( r = .41; beta .42). The results from the multivariate analysis show that sport participation during adolescence is a better predictor of adults' involvement in sports than educational level or parental socioeconomic status. The variances accounted for are rather small, indicating that sport experiences and social background characteristics only partially explain the sport participation behavior of adults. In the sports socialization process, late adolescent sports experience, along with the school program in which an adolescent is involved, appear to play a crucial role in sport involvement in later life. We recommend that youth sports programs need to be examined critically with regard to their contribution to lifetime sports participation.
Youth sport programmes are often legitimized on their assumed contribution to continued sport involvement in adulthood. A longitudinal analysis was made of the sport involvement pattern of a sample ( N = 236) of male subjects from 13 to 35 years of age, from a perspective of continued socialization into sport. The results of the quantitative analysis show that the continuation of sport participation from youth into adulthood is different according to the type of youth sport career. Tracking of sport participation patterns is moderate to high during youth, and low to moderate from youth to adulthood. Methodological issues are raised. It is concluded that youth sport programmes should be critically examined with regard to their contribution to continued sport participation in adulthood.
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