Abstract
Background and Objective
One in five preschool children are overweight/obese, and increased weight status over time increases the risks of poorer future health. Motor skill competence may be a protective factor, giving children the ability to participate in health-enhancing physical activity. Yet, we do not know when the relationship between motor competence and weight status first emerges or whether it is evident across the body mass index (BMI) spectrum. This study examined the association between motor skill competence and BMI in a multi-country sample of 5545 preschoolers (54.36 ± 9.15 months of age; 50.5% boys) from eight countries.
Methods
Quantile regression analyses were used to explore the associations between motor skill competence (assessed using the Test of Gross Motor Development, Second/Third Edition) and quantiles of BMI (15th; 50th; 85th; and 97th percentiles), adjusted for sex, age in months, and country.
Results
Negative associations of locomotor skills, ball skills, and overall motor skill competence with BMI percentiles (p < 0.005) were seen, which became stronger at the higher end of the BMI distribution (97th percentile). Regardless of sex, for each raw score point increase in locomotor skills, ball skills, and overall motor skill competence scores, BMI is reduced by 8.9%, 6.8%, and 5.1%, respectively, for those preschoolers at the 97th BMI percentile onwards.
Conclusions
Public health policies should position motor skill competence as critical for children’s obesity prevention from early childhood onwards. Robust longitudinal and experimental designs are encouraged to explore a possible causal pathway between motor skill competence and BMI from early childhood.
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Funding for the original projects was obtained by the following co-authors: DM, FC and FM were supported by the Fondo Assistenza e Benessere S.M.S (FAB), Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Asti, Polo Universitario Asti Studi Superiori (UNI-Astiss) and Citta` di Asti for the “Benessere in Gioco” project. ML and FB were supported for the Multimove for Kids project by the Flemish Government. IE was supported by the Generalitat Valenciana, Conselleria de Innovación, Universidades, Ciencia y Sociedad Digital (project APE/2021/013). AES and LKW were supported by NIH NICHD R21HD095035; Gulf States-HPC from the NIHMD NIH (U54MD008602), P30DK072476, U54GM104940, and the LSU Biomedical Collaborative Research Program. LER was partially supported by the National Institutes of Health under the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (1R01HL132979). AO, PC, and RJ were supported by The Australian Data from New South Wales, using funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (APP1062433). LMB accessed data from The Melbourne INFANT Program follow-ups that were funded by a National Health and Medical Research Council Project Grant (GNT1008879). PRB was supported by the Scholarship Program for Productivity in Research and Stimulus to Interiorization and Technological Innovation—BPI (04–2022).
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This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Institutional review board/ethics committee approval was obtained by each collaborator’s institutional review board and is presented in Table 1 of the ESM.
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Data generated or analyzed during this study are included in the article as tables, figures, and/or the ESM, and are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Authors’ Contributions
CM: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, visualization, methodology, project administration, writing (original draft). VRP: conceptualization, formal analysis, visualization, methodology, writing (review and editing). EKW and MD: data curation, project administration, supervision, writing (review and editing). LFL: conceptualization, formal analysis, methodology, writing (review and editing). AS, AO, DM, FB, IE, JM, LER, ML, SC, NV: data curation, supervision, writing (review and editing). FC, FM, KN, MQ, PC, RJ, RH, YD: data curation, writing (review and editing). PRB: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, methodology, writing (review and editing). LB: conceptualization, data curation, methodology, supervision, writing (original draft). All authors have read and approved the manuscript, and have agreed both to be personally accountable for the author’s own contributions and to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even those in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and the resolution documented in the literature. All authors read and approved the final version.
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Martins, C., Romo-Perez, V., Webster, E.K. et al. Motor Competence and Body Mass Index in the Preschool Years: A Pooled Cross-Sectional Analysis of 5545 Children from Eight Countries. Sports Med 54, 505–516 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-023-01929-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-023-01929-7