Abstract
Objectives: To analyze the association between motor coordination (MC) and body mass index (BMI)
across childhood and early adolescence. Design: This study is cross-sectional. Methods: Data were collected in 7175 children (boys n = 3616, girls n = 3559), ages 6–14 years. BMI was calculated from measured height and weight [body mass
(kg)/height (m2)]. Motor coordination was evaluated using Kiphard-Schilling's body coordination test
(KTK). Spearman's rank correlation was used to study the association between BMI and
MC. A Kruskal–Wallis test was used to analyze the differences in MC between children
of normal weight, overweight and obese children. Results: Correlations between MC and BMI were negative and varied between 0.05 and 0.49.
The highest negative correlations for both boys and girls was at 11 years of age.
There was a general pattern of increasing negative correlations in both genders from
6 to 11 years of age and then a decrease in correlation strengths through 14 years
of age. In both boys (χ2(2) = 324.01; p < 0.001) and girls (χ2(2) = 291.20; p < 0.001) there were significant differences in MC between the three groups’ weight status.
Normal weight children of both sexes demonstrated significantly higher MC scores than
overweight. Obese children in both sexes had the lowest MC scores among all three
groups. Conclusion: Motor coordination demonstrated an inverse relationship with BMI across childhood
and into early adolescence. The strength of the inverse relation increased during
childhood, but decreased through early adolescence. Overweight and obese children
of both sexes demonstrated significantly lower MC than normal weight children.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: August 10, 2011
Accepted:
July 11,
2011
Received in revised form:
July 6,
2011
Received:
March 21,
2011
Identification
Copyright
© 2011 Sports Medicine Australia. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
