Physical Fitness Among Adolescents Who are Hispanic With Overweight or Obesity.
Roberto M Benzo, Sara M St George, Sarah E Messiah and 5 others
PMID 36722880WHAT IT FOUND
In 280 Hispanic adolescents with overweight or obesity, boys had stronger grips, more sit-ups, and longer walks; girls were more flexible.
Overweight adolescents had weaker grips but better flexibility, sit-ups, and walking distance than obese adolescents.
Key findings
01Boys had greater grip strength, sit-up performance, and six-minute walk distance than girls, while girls had better sit-and-reach flexibility.
02Adolescents classified as overweight had weaker handgrip strength than those classified as obese, but better flexibility, more sit-ups, and longer walking distance.
03Handgrip strength was the fitness measure that changed most clearly with age: 13- and 14-year-olds had stronger grips than 12-year-olds.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The sample was a convenience group of Hispanic adolescents in southern Florida, so the values may not represent all Hispanic adolescents in the US. Age groups were uneven, and analyses excluded 11-year-olds (n=3) and 15-year-olds (n=14) when testing age differences. The study did not account for factors that can affect fitness test performance, such as time of day, footwear, usual physical activity, parents’ fitness, motivation, or attitudes toward testing. Only one assessor collected each participant’s outcome measure, and testing sites varied, which may have affected performance. Encouragement during the six-minute walk was not recorded, so its possible effect on distance is unknown. Comparisons with healthy-weight peers came from other studies, not from a matched control group in this sample.
Declared interests
The supplied text does not include a conflict-of-interest declaration. The publication types list NIH extramural research support.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat these results as universal normative values for all Hispanic adolescents or as evidence that obesity causes poorer fitness. The findings describe baseline performance in a convenience sample of southern Florida adolescents with overweight or obesity, and the comparisons with healthy-weight peers were not made within this study.