20-year monitoring of physical developmental characteristics in school-age children and adolescents living in Kursk

Abstract

The purpose of this study was a comparative assessment of the indicators of physical development of children 7–18 years old living in the city of Kursk for the periods 2000–2001. and 2019–2020. The research was carried out on the basis of general educational organizations located in different districts of Kursk in the period from 2000-2001. and 2019–2020. The standard anthropometric technique, instrumentation and methods of statistical processing were used. The total number of the surveyed was 20083 schoolchildren. The criteria for inclusion in the sample are children and adolescents of school age who are at the time of the study in an educational organization, the presence of a correctly completed informed consent and a correctly conducted anthropometric study. Statistical processing of the obtained data was carried out using the statistical analysis package Statistica 10.0. The monitoring of the physical development of schoolchildren in the city of Kursk carried out in this study in the dynamics of twenty years of observation revealed a significant increase in the indicators of length and body weight in all age-sex groups of schoolchildren. Against the background of positive medical and social changes in the city of Kursk, manifestations of the acceleration process were recorded, which are harmonious and accompanied by an increase in muscle strength indicators.