Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Motor Development of Schoolchildren in Rural and Urban Environments

Pajek, Sara V.

doi:10.1155/2022/8937693

Cited by 12 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Our results are also in line with other studies reporting pandemic-related declines of children’s and adolescents’ cardiorespiratory endurance [ 19 – 21 , 23 – 26 , 64 ] and speed [ 22 , 24 , 28 , 64 , 65 ]. For powerLOW, Chambonnière et al [ 19 ] report a pandemic-related performance decline of third- and fourth-graders in the standing long jump.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…Increases in body mass negatively affect performance in weight-bearing tests [ 84 ] and may be associated with the negative pandemic effects on the three running tests in the present study. However, other studies report no evidence for changes in BMI [ 19 , 24 , 86 ] or subgroup-specific changes depending on gender [ 23 , 26 ], socioeconomic status [ 25 , 85 ], or comorbidities [ 87 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Covid Pandemic Effects on the Physical Fitness of Primary School Children: Results of the German EMOTIKON Project

et al. 2023

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Background In spring of 2020, the Sars-CoV-2 incidence rate increased rapidly in Germany and around the world. Throughout the next 2 years, schools were temporarily closed and social distancing measures were put in place to slow the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Did these social restrictions and temporary school lockdowns affect children’s physical fitness? The EMOTIKON project annually tests the physical fitness of all third-graders in the Federal State of Brandenburg, Germany. The tests assess cardiorespiratory endurance (6-min-run test), coordination (star-run test), speed (20-m sprint test), lower (powerLOW, standing long jump test), and upper (powerUP, ball-push test) limbs muscle power, and static balance (one-legged stance test with eyes closed). A total of 125,893 children were tested in the falls from 2016 to 2022. Primary analyses focused on 98,510 keyage third-graders (i.e., school enrollment according to the legal key date, aged 8 to 9 years) from 515 schools. Secondary analyses included 27,383 older-than-keyage third-graders (i.e., OTK, delayed school enrollment or repetition of a grade, aged 9 to 10 years), who have been shown to exhibit lower physical fitness than expected for their age. Linear mixed models fitted pre-pandemic quadratic secular trends, and took into account differences between children and schools. Results Third-graders exhibited lower cardiorespiratory endurance, coordination, speed and powerUP in the Covid pandemic cohorts (2020–2022) compared to the pre-pandemic cohorts (2016–2019). Children’s powerLOW and static balance were higher in the pandemic cohorts compared to the pre-pandemic cohorts. From 2020 to 2021, coordination, powerLOW and powerUP further declined. Evidence for some post-pandemic physical fitness catch-up was restricted to powerUP. Cohen’s |ds| for comparisons of the pandemic cohorts 2020–2022 with pre-pandemic cohorts 2016–2019 ranged from 0.02 for powerLOW to 0.15 for coordination. Within the pandemic cohorts, keyage children exhibited developmental losses ranging from approximately 1 month for speed to 5 months for cardiorespiratory endurance. For powerLOW and static balance, the positive pandemic effects translate to developmental gains of 1 and 7 months, respectively. Pre-pandemic secular trends may account for some of the observed differences between pandemic and pre-pandemic cohorts, especially in powerLOW, powerUP and static balance. The pandemic further increased developmental delays of OTK children in cardiorespiratory endurance, powerUP and balance. Conclusions The Covid-19 pandemic was associated with declines in several physical fitness components in German third-graders. Pandemic effects are still visible in 2022. Health-related interventions should specifically target those physical fitness components that were negatively affected by the pandemic (cardiorespiratory endurance, coordination, speed).

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Covid Pandemic Effects on the Physical Fitness of Primary School Children: Results of the German EMOTIKON Project

et al. 2023

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“…The COVID-19 pandemic with its lockdowns and closures of kindergartens, schools and leisure facilities has influenced child health and development (HAD) in many ways -as has meanwhile been shown by individual studies and reviews: mental disorders have increased [1]; motor skills have been inhibited and overall physical fitness has worsened [2]; children have gained weight [3,4]; language development has worsened [5,6]. Social inequalities in child HAD are a common pattern [7,8], and it has been postulated that children from vulnerable backgrounds will be most affected by the pandemic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Child health and development in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic: are there social inequalities?

Weyers

Rigó

2023

Eur J Pediatr

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COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and closures have influenced all children’s health and development (HAD). We aimed to examine whether this differs by social circumstances. We hypothesised that socially disadvantaged children experienced more pronounced deterioration in their HAD compared with better-off children. In our trend study, we included five cohorts of school enrolment medical screening (school entrance 2018–2022) in the city of Dusseldorf, Germany. To compensate for selection bias due to the limited number of examinations in pandemic months, we chose the first 800 examinations of each cohort. We computed predicted prevalences of overweight, coordination and language problems as indicators of HAD. Neighbourhood deprivation, single-parent families and non-German nationality were used as indicators of social disadvantage. All groups of children experienced a deterioration in their HAD. Its magnitude is comparable between children with different social circumstances. For instance, between 2018 and 2021, prevalence of overweight increased from 19.2 to 24.2% in children from deprived neighbourhoods, and from 8.1 to 16.5% in children from well-off neighbourhoods. Prevalence of language problems (prepositions) increased from 49.9 to 72.1% among non-German children, and from 14.4 to 39.1% among German children. Conclusion: Results only partly confirmed our hypothesis. However, since the pre-pandemic prevalences of HAD problems among disadvantaged children were already higher, further deterioration — regardless of its magnitude — has led to their particularly poor situation. For those children, overweight and language development should be priorities of prevention. Generally, important settings for child HAD such as kindergartens or leisure facilities should remain open in future pandemics. What is known:• The COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on general child health and development.• Before the pandemic, social inequalities in child health and development were a common phenomenon. What is new:• Children in all social groups experienced a deterioration in their health and development over the course of the pandemic.• Over the course of the pandemic, children from deprived neighbourhoods have demonstrated a particularly high prevalence of overweight. Language problems are particularly prevalent among non-German children.

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“…This makes the government have to implement various measures such as lockdowns, closing various institutions, programs, and facilities, and restrictions on the use of open public spaces in an effort to slow down and reduce the rate of transmission (Paterson et al, 2021). As a result, physical education, which had a major impact on planned physical activity in schools, had to disappear due to the closure of schools and kindergartens (Pajek, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lower Elementary School Student Non-Locomotor Movement Profile During COVID-19 Pandemic

Melinda,

Gumilar,

Nuryadi

2023

Journal of Teaching Physical Education in Elementary School

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This study aimed to construct a profile related to the basic non-locomotor movement skills of elementary school students during the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey was conducted on 53 elementary school students aged 6–8 years of an elementary school in Bandung. The instrument of the study was an instrument for assessing non-locomotor movement skills developed by Gallahue related to stability skills including beamwalk (walking on a beam), one foot balance (standing on a beam with one leg), and dodging. The findings showed that the motor skill stages of lower elementary school students of elementary school in Bandung during the pandemic included three stages, namely the initial stage (6% for the beam walk test, 11% for the one foot balance test, and 15% for the dodging test), the elementary stage (64% for the beam walk test, 70% for one foot balance, and 60% for the dodging test), and the mature stage (30% for the beam walk test, 19% and 25% for the one foot balance and the dodging test, respectively).

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Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Motor Development of Schoolchildren in Rural and Urban Environments

Cited by 12 publications

References 12 publications

Covid Pandemic Effects on the Physical Fitness of Primary School Children: Results of the German EMOTIKON Project

Covid Pandemic Effects on the Physical Fitness of Primary School Children: Results of the German EMOTIKON Project

Child health and development in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic: are there social inequalities?

Lower Elementary School Student Non-Locomotor Movement Profile During COVID-19 Pandemic

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