Somatic growth and physical fitness in rural children and youth of Calanga, Mozambique: effects of age, gender and geographical area

Abstract

The aims of this study were: 1) to examine the influence of chronological age, sex and geographical area (GA) in the variability of somatic growth and physical fitness (PF) of children and youth from Calanga, Mozambique; 2) to differentiate their values to those of urban areas (UA) of the same age cohort, as well as with those from international references. Sample size consisted of 3172 subjects of both genders from seven to 16 years old; 818 subjects were from rural area (RA) and 2354 from UA. Height and weight were measured according to Lohman et al. (1988) procedures. PF was evaluated with : 1) AAHPERD (1980) test battery which includes mile run and hand grip; 2) EUROFT (1988) including tests such as sit and reach, standing long jump, flexed arm hang and 10x5 meters run; 3) Fitnessgram (1994) assessing curl up. Data analysis consisted of ANOVA II and ANCOVA, as well as descriptive statistics done in SPSS 14.0. An increase pattern of mean values in PF was found in both genders, with greater values in boys; a significant effect as well as an interaction of age, sex and GA in the majority of somatic and PF variables. Body mass index in boys and coefficient of total physical activity in girls were found as significant covariates in the majority of the selected physical tests. Conclusions: 1) subjects from RA showed better performances than the American and Belgian references, specially in the one mile run and flexibility, despite their values of height and weight that were below of the percentile 25 of the international norms; 2) boys performed better than girls, as well as the UA than RA.