Abstrakt
It is quite well known that excessive body fat in children is interpreted as a marker of inhibited physical activity and motor performance. This study aimed to establish whether severe impairment of fundamental motor skills (defined as performance under 5th centile of norms) will be significantly more frequently identified in pre-schoolers age 3-6 years with amount of body fat higher than 85th centile of norms.
Research sample consisted of 496 (females=241, males=255) pre-schoolers selected from specific district of Prague, Czech Republic. The MABC-2 was used for the assesment fundamental motor skills.
Equations for body fat estimation in children identified 35.8% children with body fat>85th centile of norms, 61.7% within 15th-85th centile, and 2.5% of children90th centile in MABC-2 between fat 8.4% and non fat children 10.7%. We suggest that amount of body fat is not a clear predictor for the degree of fundamental motor skills.