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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Children and Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1578304
This article is part of the Research TopicBuilding Health Through Physical Activity in Schools - Volume IIView all 8 articles
Effects of body mass index and extracurricular sports activities on physical fitness in school-aged children
Provisionally accepted- Department of Physiotherapy, Faculty of Sport Sciences, Poznan University of Physical Education, Gorzów Wielkopolski, Poland
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Background: We are seeing a steady decline in children's physical fitness. Along with overweight and obesity, low physical fitness is one of the most serious disorders in child development. One solution to these problems is additional physical activity. It was investigated whether reduced physical fitness is associated with an increased body mass index and whether children who participate in extra-curricular sports activities have better physical fitness. Methods: The study involved 201 children (101 girls, 100 boys) aged 10±2 (grades 1-8 of the primary school). Half of the participants reported participating in extra-curricular sports activities, while half did not participate in any sports activities. The children were assessed for body mass index, grip strength, balance, strength, speed and reaction time. Results: Significant differences in fitness test results were observed between active and inactive students. Significant differences were also found between students with different body mass index. The 4 months of schooling had a positive effect on most of the fitness characteristics assessed. Grip strength appeared to be a determinant of the other fitness scores. Conclusions: The hypotheses that both additional physical activity and BMI will influence children's fitness, and that 4 months of schooling will have a positive effect on improving students' fitness, were confirmed. Hand-grip strength was found to be a determinant of better performance in almost all other fitness tests.
Keywords: school-aged children, Extracurricular sports activities, children physical fitness, children physical activity, Obesity
Received: 17 Feb 2025; Accepted: 10 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Aniśko, Bernatowicz and Wójcik. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Bartosz Aniśko, Department of Physiotherapy, Faculty of Sport Sciences, Poznan University of Physical Education, Gorzów Wielkopolski, Poland
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