Relationship Between Objectively Measured Physical Activity and FMS in Children

Introduction: Little objective data have examined the effectiveness of physical education (PE) in schools to augment students’ physical activity (PA) level. We believe that PE is one of the most important methods to increase PA among school aged children. Most studies have shown that students spend less than 50% of PE class time in moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA) (Fairclough és Stratton 2006, WHO 2008). The Hungarian government decided to facilitate an increase in the amount of PA in children with the introduction of everyday PE in schools. The study aimed to examine the PA levels of children during school days, after the change to everyday PE lessons and to examine the relationship between functional movement (which includes flexibility, stability, and strength requirements) and measured PA, and the differences between boys and girls in these variables.

Methods: Thirty-seven 9-13 yr old children participated in the study, and after statistical data filtering, 32 children’ data were analyzed (19 boys and 13 girls). The body dimensions were taken following the ACSM’ recommendations, the activity were measured using GT3X ActiGraph equipments. The PA was detected on 5 weekdays using 5sec. epoch length. Functional movement was measured via the Functional Movement Screen (FMS). Descriptive statistics were calculated using the STATISTICA software version 11.0, the gender differences were analyzed with t-tests.

Results: Boys were heavier and participated in significantly more MVPA/day than girls. Boys spent significantly more time (23.46%) of their school time in MVPA compared to girls (17.87%). Girls achieved higher scores in FMS than boys, and we found a week opposite relationship (r=-0.34) between the measured PA and FMS.

Conclusion: Everyday PE is significantly contributed to the daily MVPA, and thus most of the children reached the 60 min. daily recommendation during school time. The boys’ activity was higher; however, the girls’ functional movement ability was better. From our results, we note that a higher PA does not necessarily relate to better functional movement

References: Fairclough, S.J., Stratton, G. (2006): A review of physical activity levels during elementary school physical education. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 25: 239-257. WHO (2008): School Policy Framework: Implementation of the Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health, http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/disease-prevention/physical-activity/publications

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