Associations of various exercise types with health-related physical fitness: Focus on physical fitness age

Physical fitness is an indicator for children’s public health status. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the construct validity and the criterion-related validity of the German motor test (GMT) in Egyptian schoolchildren. A cross-sectional study was conducted with a total of 931 children aged 6 to 11 years (age: 9.1 ± 1.7 years) with 484 (52%) males and 447 (48%) females in grades one to five in Assiut city. The children’s physical fitness data were collected using GMT. GMT is designed to measure five health-related physical fitness components including speed, strength, coordination, endurance, and flexibility of children aged 6 to 18 years. The anthropometric data were collected based on three indicators: body height, body weight, and BMI. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted with IBM SPSS AMOS 26.0 using full-information maximum likelihood. The results indicated an adequate fit (χ2 = 112.3, df = 20; p < 0.01; CFI = 0.956; RMSEA = 0.07). The χ2-statistic showed significant results, and the values for CFI and RMSEA showed a good fit. All loadings of the manifest variables on the first-order latent factors as well as loadings of the first-order latent factors on the second-order superordinate factor were significant. The results also showed strong construct validity in the components of conditioning abilities and moderate construct validity in the components of coordinative abilities. GMT proved to be a valid method and could be widely used on large-scale studies for health-related fitness monitoring in the Egyptian population.

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Association between Health-Related Physical Fitness and Respiratory Diseases in Adolescents: An Age- and Gender-Matched Study

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18126655 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (12) ◽

pp. 6655

Author(s):

Jeong-Hui Park ◽

Myong-Won Seo ◽

Hyun Chul Jung ◽

Jong-Kook Song ◽

Jung-Min Lee

Keyword(s):

Physical Fitness ◽

Respiratory Diseases ◽

Muscular Strength ◽

Positive Association ◽

General Group ◽

Cardiovascular Endurance ◽

Health Practitioners ◽

Health Related ◽

And Gender ◽

Matched Study

The current study examined the differences in health-related physical fitness (HRPF), physical activity (PA), and sedentary behavior (SB) between adolescents with and without ongoing respiratory diseases (RD). This study’s participants were from 12 to 15 years old (7th–10th grade) in South Korea. Adolescents with RD were selected through RD-related questions (i.e., asthma, rhinitis, sinusitis, and bronchitis) (n = 139); in contrast, adolescents without RD, randomly selected from the general group, responded to any health problem-related questions as “No” (n = 139). HRPF was measured based on the FITNESSGRAM and EURO FIT test batteries and the measurements of HRPF included cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and body composition. All statistical analyses were conducted by SPSS 25.0, and the independent t-test was used to compare the HRPF and PA between the two groups. Moreover, the measured HRPF was compared with a series of analyses of three-way ANOVAs (age × gender × group). Adolescents with RD had a positive association with less participation in PA (p < 0.05; RD: 3081.81 ± 4793.37; general: 2073.64 ± 3123.47) and with more time spent on SB (above 12 h per week: RD group (38.85%) and general group (33.09%)). Furthermore, adolescents in the RD group showed significant effects on all components of HRPF (p < 0.05). Our study confirmed that HRPF is an essential predictor of adolescents’ health outcomes, especially for those with RD. We suggest that increased HRPF can be an effective treatment for respiratory diseases in adolescents, and health practitioners should pay more attention to helping adolescents with RD to gain or maintain high HRPF.

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