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Cardiorespiratory fitness and academic performance association is mediated by weight status in adolescents: DADOS study

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Abstract

The aim of our study was to examine the mediation effect of weight status on the association between cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and academic performance (AP). Two hundred sixty-nine adolescents (140 boys) aged 13.9 ± 0.3 years old from the DADOS study were included in this cross-sectional analysis. CRF was assessed by the 20-m shuttle run test and estimated maximum oxygen uptake was used in the analysis. AP was assessed through the final academic grades and the Science Research Associates Test of Educational Abilities for assessing reasoning, verbal, and numeric abilities. Weight status was assessed by body mass index (kg/m2). Boot-strapped mediation procedures were performed and indirect effects (IE) with confidence intervals (CI) not including zero were considered statistically significant. Mediation analysis revealed that weight status acted as a mediator of the relationship of CRF with reasoning ability (IE = 0.039; CI = 0.001; 0.091) and the final grades in Math (IE = 0.011; CI = 0.002; 0.025), Language (IE = 0.013; CI = 0.004; 0.027), and GPA (IE = 0.011; CI = 0.003; 0.023).

Conclusions: Our data show that the influence of CRF on academic performance is mediated by weight status in adolescents. We suggest that our data could be considered by educators, families, and policy makers, so that active lifestyles might be promoted when designing programs aimed to improve AP among adolescents.

What is Known:

• Academic performance is associated with both, cardiorespiratory fitness and weight status.

• The role of weight status in the association between cardiorespiratory fitness and academic performance is poorly understood.

What is New:

• We support the scarce research investigating the mediating role of weight status as mechanism in the association between fitness and academic performance in youth.

• Previous knowledge is expanded by suggesting that cardiorespiratory fitness is related to weight status which in turn may positively influence academic performance in adolescents.

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Abbreviations

AP:

Academic performance

BMI:

Body mass index

CRF:

Cardiorespiratory fitness

GPA:

Grade point average

SD:

Standard deviation

SDS:

Standard deviation scores

SES:

Socioeconomic status

VO2max:

Maximum oxygen uptake

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Funding

DADOS Study is funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, MINECO (DEP2013-45515-R) and by the Jaume I University of Castellon, UJI (P1·1A2015-05). This work is partly supported by a Sunny Sport research grant from the Schweppes Suntory Spain Company. M.A.R is supported by a Predoctoral Research Grant from UJI (PREDOC/2015/13).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. LIFE Research Group, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Education, University Jaume I, Av. Vicent Sos Baynat, 12071, Castellon, Spain

    María Reyes Beltran-Valls, Mireia Adelantado-Renau & Diego Moliner-Urdiales

  2. Department of Physical Education, Faculty of Education Sciences, University of Cadiz, Av. República Saharaui s/n, 11519, Puerto Real, Spain

    Jose Castro-Piñero

  3. Faculty of Education, Universidad de Castilla La Mancha, Ronda de Calatrava, s/n, 13071, Ciudad Real, Spain

    Mairena Sánchez-López

  4. Social and Health Research Centre, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, St. Santa Teresa Jornet, s/n, 16071, Cuenca, Spain

    Mairena Sánchez-López

Authors
  1. María Reyes Beltran-Valls
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  2. Mireia Adelantado-Renau
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  3. Jose Castro-Piñero
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  4. Mairena Sánchez-López
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  5. Diego Moliner-Urdiales
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Contributions

María Reyes Beltran-Valls was involved in the data collection and analysis, and drafting of the initial manuscript. Mireia Adelantado-Renau was involved in the data collection and critical revision of the manuscript. Jose Castro-Piñero and Mairena Sánchez-López were involved in the critical revision of the manuscript. Diego Moliner-Urdiales was involved in the study design and data collection, manuscript preparation, and critical revision. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Diego Moliner-Urdiales.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Ethical approval

The DADOS study protocol was designed in accordance with the ethical guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki 1961 (last revision of Fortaleza, Brazil, 2013) and was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the University Jaume I of Castellon.

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Communicated by Mario Bianchetti

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Beltran-Valls, M.R., Adelantado-Renau, M., Castro-Piñero, J. et al. Cardiorespiratory fitness and academic performance association is mediated by weight status in adolescents: DADOS study. Eur J Pediatr 177, 1037–1043 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00431-018-3159-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00431-018-3159-1

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