Health related physical fitness of school children (6 to 10 years) from Azores Islands, Portugal

Abstract

The purposes of this research were: (1) to investigate health related physical fitness (HPF) of school children (6 to 10 years) from Azores islands, Portugal, and to (2) analyse sex differences in each age. The sample comprised 3742 children of both sexes, residents in Azores islands, Portugal. Twenty-five percent of the children in each gender and age in each island were evaluated with FITNESSGRAM: 1-mile run/walk, curl-ups, push-ups, trunk lift and body mass index (BMI) (kg/m-2). Data were analysed as follow: ?2 to test the differences in ratio of success/failure in each age group; factorial ANOVA gender*age) to test the differences between age groups and gender; discriminant function to test the presence of multivariate profiles of HPF in age natural groups. The ratios of success in both boys and girls were low. In girls there was a substantial decrease of ratio of success between 6 and 10 years of age. Among 10-year-old girls the global ratio of success was only 18%. In boys, the ratios of success had also a tendency to decrease along age. Among 10-years-old boys the global ratio of success was 39%. Boys had better performance in all tests than girls of all ages. Discriminant function analyses indicated that there were a low percentage of children classified in their natural age groups. Although there were children with HPF level advanced for their natural age groups, there were a considerable number of children with HPF level lower than the expected for their own age.