Citation

Wang JH, Wu MC, Chang HH. Pediatr. Int. 2013; 55(3): 346-354.

Affiliation

Department of Bio-industry Communication and Development, National Taiwan University, Taiwan. wangjh@ntu.edu.tw.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Japan Pediatric Society, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/ped.12044

PMID

23279142

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Childhood fitness is generally evaluated by a battery of health-related estimators to assess pediatric health status. More so than the fitness level at any other stage of life, the level of physical fitness in childhood will have a marked effect on an individual's physical development and overall health in adolescence and adulthood. This paper contributes to this issue by investigating the differences in the distribution of the physical fitness of elementary schoolchildren aged 9-12 by gender, region and ethnicity. METHODS: Data were drawn from a nationwide dataset of physical fitness test profiles of elementary school students, conducted by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan in 2008. In total, 134,546 schoolchildren in fourth to sixth grade aged from 9 to 12 are included. Three components of physical fitness are measured: explosive power, muscular strength, and flexibility. Each fitness test score was carried out by the school teachers during physical education classes. A statistical test procedure was then used to test the distributional differences in each category of physical fitness by age, gender and region. By further using the official recommendation levels, we also examine the proportions of schoolchildren that have poor physical fitness performance. RESULTS: In general, boys have better physical fitness than girls except in the area of flexibility. In addition to gender differences, our results are supportive of there being differences in the rural and urban populations. The rural children perform better than urban children in bent-leg curl-ups and standing long jump tests. CONCLUSIONS: Physical fitness has been recognized not only as an integrated predictor of the body's functional status, but also as an important marker of health outcomes. Although considerable attention had been paid to examining the urban-rural differences in physical fitness, our results indicate that it is necessary to further consider the differences in ethnicity.

Language: en