THE INFLUENCE OF OBESITY IN CHILDREN MOTOR COORDINATION
Joint Event on International Conference on OBESITY AND WEIGHT MANAGEMENT & International Conference on VACCINES AND IMMUNOLOGY
June 28-29, 2018 | Amsterdam, Netherlands
Samuel Honorio
Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco, Portugal
Posters & Accepted Abstracts : Asian J Biomed Pharmaceut Sci
Abstract:
Obesity defined as the accumulation of abnormal or excessive fat that can harm health” has increased dramatically, affecting more and more children and adolescents. At the origin of this situation, it seems to be patterns of food behavior in which is visible a greater consumption of calories. However, physical activity levels are very low, since modernization has had implications for the population’s lifestyle, becoming less active and the acquisition of coordinating skills may be impaired during this phase of development. The objective of this study was to analyze the influence of obesity on the motor coordination of first cycle children, between first and fourth grade. A study was carried out with several participants of 52 students between six and nine years of age, of both genders, belonging to two educational establishments. For the evaluation of the prevalence of obesity, the abdominal perimeter and Body Mass Index (BMI) were used, applying cut-off points, categorizing the sample in three levels, normal-ponderal, overweight and obesity. The assessment of motor coordination was performed using the Körperkoordination Test für Kinder (KTK) battery. Statistical analysis of the data was based on SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science), version 19.0. Based on the results obtained and analyzing the gender differences, it was concluded that females had lower performance levels than the male gender. It was also evidenced that the students presented worse levels of motor performance as the age advanced. Regarding the prevalence of obesity, it was observed that females and males obtained high and similar mean values for the normal-ponderal category, while 25% of the sample was overweight. Regarding the level of motor coordination, it was verified that 57.7% of the students had normal coordination and that 40.4% of the students had coordinative difficulties. Still in this field, we can also conclude that the normal-ponderal population showed better results than the overweight population. In conclusion, it was verified that the correlations between the BMI and abdominal perimeter with the classification in the tests of motor coordination revealed an inverse sense and so it was concluded that the population that obtains higher values of BMI and abdominal perimeter obtains lower motor coordination results.
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