Nutritional Status and Physical Performance of a sample of schoolchildren of 14 and 15 years old from the city of Chillán, Chile

Abstract

Introduction: Childhood obesity is a problem of great magnitude and with serious repercussions on the state of health, which raises the need to take measures aimed at stimulating or improving both the nutritional contribution and the physical condition. The objective of this study was to compare the physical performance of a sample of students according to the nutritional status of 14-and 15-year-old students in the city of Chillán. Material and Methods: descriptive cross-sectional observational study carried out with 245 students of the Superior Institute of Commerce of the city of Chillán, eighth region of Chile. Information was collected on the weight and height with which the body mass index and the waist circumference were obtained. In addition, information was collected on physical performance such as Course-Navette, sit-ups, arm push-ups, jump and flexibility through the battery used by the Education Quality Agency in Chile (SIMCE) of Physical Education. Results: 18.8% and 14.3% of the students are overweight and obese respectively. Children who are overweight and obese have a worse physical performance with a lower number of abdominal repetitions and arm flexes, a lower jump and a shorter time in seconds in Course-Navette. In flexibility, no differences were found according to nutritional status. Conclusions: students with overweight and obesity have a worse physical performance. Hence the need to take measures aimed at stimulating or improving the physical capacity to reverse these adverse trends for their health.