The association between functional movement and overweight and obesity in British primary school children

Abstract

BackgroundThe purpose of this study was to examine the association between functional movement and overweight and obesity in British children.MethodsData were obtained from 90, 7–10 year old children (38 boys and 52 girls). Body mass (kg) and height (m) were assessed from which body mass index (BMI) was determined and children were classified as normal weight, overweight or obese according to international cut offs. Functional movement was assessed using the functional movement screen.ResultsTotal functional movement score was significantly, negatively correlated with BMI (P = .0001). Functional movement scores were also significantly higher for normal weight children compared to obese children (P = .0001). Normal weight children performed significantly better on all individual tests within the functional movement screen compared to their obese peers (P <0.05) and significantly better than overweight children for the deep squat (P = .0001) and shoulder mobility tests (P = .04). Overweight children scored significantly better than obese in the hurdle step (P = .0001), in line lunge (P = .05), shoulder mobility (P = .04) and active straight leg raise (P = .016).Functional movement scores were not significantly different between boys and girls (P > .05) when considered as total scores. However, girls performed significantly better than boys on the hurdle step (P = .03) and straight leg raise (P = .004) but poorer than boys on the trunk stability push-up (P = .014).ConclusionsThis study highlights that overweight and obesity are significantly associated with poorer functional movement in children and that girls outperform boys in functional movements.

The impact of an exergame-based intervention on children's fundamental motor skills

“…It is possible that when children feel confident in their skills, they tend to engage in higher levels of physical activity (Gabbard, 2011). Positive relationships have also been found between FMS performance and weight status (Castetbon & Andreyeva, 2012;Duncan, Stanley, & Wright, 2013) among young children. Further, research has pointed out that children who stay active tend to maintain high levels of physical fitness (Barnett, van Beurden, Morgan, Brooks, & Beard, 2008;Mitchell et al, 2013).…”

Influences of gender and socioeconomic status on the motor proficiency of children in the UK

“…In one of the rare UK studies, albeit with 7-10 year olds, a study by Duncan et al (2013) reported no gender differences in motor proficiency when considered as total scores, but girls outperformed boys on the hurdle step and straight leg raise with boys outperforming girls on the trunk stability push-up. Other studies have reported varying and often conflicting perspectives on the significance of gender in motor proficiency when studying preschool children (Bala & Katić, 2009).…”

Outcomes associated with early post-traumatic osteoarthritis and other negative health consequences 3–10 years following knee joint injury in youth sport

“…Specifically, increasing BMI category and obesity are highly associated with multiple morbidity, cardiovascular disease and type-2 diabetes mellitus which in turn are major causes of morbidity and mortality in the industrialized world 30 . Obesity is also associated with poorer functional movement 32 and is well established as a risk factor for OA 33 .…”