Physical activity, physical fitness and motor competence according weight status: a study in Cape Verdean school children: healthy and active children

Overweight in children and adolescents a serious problem to public health in XXI century. This study aimed to analyse the differences in levels of physical activity (PA), physical fitness (PF) and motor competence (MC) according to the weight status, in schoolchildren from the Island of Santiago, Cape Verde. This cross-sectional study was carried out in 2017, with a sample of 145 boys and 198 girls, with 13.5 ± 0.8 years of age. Height and weight were used to determine the values of body mass index (BMI, kg / m 2), and weight status Weight status was classified according to IOTF cut values for BMI. The pedometer was used to evaluate the PA, four fitnessgram battery tests and the grip strength test were used to evaluate the PF. MC was evaluated with KTK and TGMD-2. The descriptive statistics were calculated for all variables and the differences according to the weight status were analysed with Kruskal-Wallis test. Although there are children who are overweight, obese and underweight, most of them are normoponderal. PA did not present significant differences between weight status categories. Concerning to PF, there were significant differences in the arms extension, mile run and grip strength tests. Considering MC, there were no significant differences between the categories of weight status for both boys and girls. In conclusion, the sample was mostly normoponderal, with emphasis on the prevalence of low weight in relation to overweight/obesity. With significant differences between weight categories in PF and MC tests.