Influence of Body Composition on Physical Fitness in Adolescents

Abstract

<jats:p>Background and objectives: Childhood obesity is one of the main public health issues facing advanced societies. The Spanish population presents 28.6% overweight or obese adolescents, and Extremadura, 22.3%. Physical fitness is considered one of the most important health markers and a common predictor of morbidity and mortality caused by cardiovascular diseases. Thus, fitness tests are needed for health monitoring, especially in overweight and obese adolescents. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the relationship between body composition and physical fitness in adolescents and to analyse if there are differences in physical condition and body composition between the sexes, as well as to compare the different body mass index (BMI) categories to each other. This project also tried to find regression equations to predict the physical fitness test results. Materials and Methods: A total of 225 adolescents were recruited. Weight status was classified according to WHO 2007 standards. Body composition variables (i.e., BMI, fat mass (FM), FM percentage (FM%), and fat-free mass (FFM)) and physical fitness (standing long jump (SLJ), speed–agility (SA), cardiorespiratory fitness (CF), and handgrip strength (HS)) were assessed. Results: Significant differences were found between the sexes in body composition (FM%, FM, and FFM) and physical fitness (SLJ, SA, CF, and HS) (p &lt; 0.001) in favour of males. Significant differences were also found in speed (p = 0.002), CF (p &lt; 0.001), and SLJ (p = 0.004) in favour of normal-weight adolescents compared to overweight and obese adolescents. Contrarily, the outcomes revealed a significantly greater HS (p = 0.014) in favour of overweight and obese participants compared to normal-weight adolescents. Moreover, the results showed that CF and SLJ correlated inversely with BMI, FM%, and total FM. There was also a direct relationship between SA and FM percentage, as well as between HS and FFM. Finally, four fitness test predictive models are proposed based on body composition, age, sex, and BMI. Conclusions: Overweight and obese adolescents have lower levels of physical fitness than their normal-weight peers, regardless of their sex. Normal-ranged body composition values are related to a greater physical fitness in adolescents. Furthermore, this study presents several equations that can help to predict the performance of different fitness tests in adolescents.</jats:p>

Valores de alfabetización física en niños con edades comprendidas entre 8 y 12 en Extremadura: Estudio piloto

“…Sim embargo, diversos estudios si encuentran diferencias significativas para este rango de edad en estudios con un tamaño muestral mayor (Secchi, García, España-Romero, & Castro-Piñero, 2014). En este sentido, el CAPL-2 en adolescente de entre 12 y 16 años (Blanchard, Van Wyk, Ertel, Alpous, & Longmuir, 2019), si se obtuvieron diferencias significativas entre sexos, así como otros estudios que han evaluado condición física en muestra adolescente (Castro-Piñero et al, 2009;Mendoza-Muñoz et al, 2020;Ortega et al, 2011;Ortega et al, 2008;Ortega et al, 2005;Rosa Guillamón, Rodríguez García, García Cantó, & Pérez Soto, 2015). En general, la mayoría de estudios ponen en concordancia como los niveles de fuerza, velocidad/agilidad, rendimiento y capacidad aeróbica son mayores en los participantes masculinos (Secchi et al, 2014), así como que los niños con alta condición física cardiovascular muestran menores valores de índice de masa corporal (IMC), porcentaje de grasa corporal, o más específicamente en la batería de tests ALPHA-Fitness mejores niveles en saltos de longitud, en la prueba Course Navette o velocidad 4x 10 metros (Mayorga-Vega, Merino-Marban, & Rodríguez-Fernández, 2013;Mendoza-Muñoz et al, 2020), donde además presenta una clara relación con la salud cardiovascular de los niños (Mayorga-Vega et al, 2013;Ruíz et al, 2011).…”

The Relationship between Body Composition and Physical Fitness and the Effect of Exercise According to the Level of Childhood Obesity Using the MGPA Model

“…Most previous research has focused on identifying the relationship between body composition and physical fitness, or examining the intervention effects of exercise in obese and normal children. However, when exploring the relationship between body composition and physical fitness in 225 adolescents, significant differences were found between the overweight and obese groups and the normal-weight group in the long jump, agility, and cardiorespiratory fitness tests [ 16 ]. Although research should also be conducted according to the degree of obesity, studies examining the differences in body composition and physical fitness, or the effects of intervention by classifying the degree of obesity, are still lacking.…”

Influence of Body Composition on Physical Literacy in Spanish Children

“…Despite its important implications, to the best of our knowledge, there is a lack of such studies in Spain [14]. Few studies have evaluated separately how the different domains that form PL influence overweight and obese children's health: they perform fewer daily behaviours related to physical activity [15], have lower physical condition [16] and reduced motivation towards physical activity [17]. Due to the relevance of studying all the PL domains together, this study aims to (1) establish the level of PL in overweight and nonoverweight children in Extremadura (Spain), (2) analyse the potential differences between them and (3) explore the relationship between body composition and the PL domains.…”