Duration: 2019 – 2020
Principal Researcher
Carlos Luz
Research line:
Health Education and Quality of Life
Emerging evidence places motor competence (MC) as the main predictor of physical activity (PA), as well as indicating that there is an increase in strength in the associations between MC and weight (inverse) and level of physical fitness (direct), both in childhood and in childhood. adolescence. However, the association of MC with long-term health outcomes has been very little studied, and to our knowledge only one study has addressed this topic. Recently, Bolger and colleagues (2019) sought to establish a relationship between MC and other health markers, such as resting heart rate (RHR), blood pressure (BP) and PA levels, body mass index (BMI), waist ratio -hip (RCA) and cardiorespiratory capacity (CR). The authors did not find significant associations between CM and WHR, BMI and BP, however they warn of the need for more research, especially longitudinal and intervention, to better understand these relationships.
Therefore, given the high importance that MC presents, it seems pertinent to understand how MC and clinical markers of cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes are related. To do this, we used metabolic syndrome (MetS) as a clinical marker, which is a set of essentially cardiovascular risk factors based on abdominal obesity.
In addition to this relationship and recognizing the importance of CM in promoting active and healthy lifestyles, it is pertinent to understand how CM relates to health-related quality of life (HRQoL).
To this end, we propose to evaluate MC (stabilizing, locomotor and object manipulation tests), cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular fitness, physical activity, blood pressure, measurement of biochemical markers (fasting capillary blood glucose, total cholesterol; triglycerides; HDL and capillary LDL), nutritional assessment (weight, height, BMI, skinfolds, perimeters, body composition, bone strength and dietary pattern) and HRQoL. Additionally, we intend to understand how the variables behave when subjected to a motor intervention (carrying out 3 physical education classes per week) compared to a control group (only 1 physical education class per week) for 4 months. We hypothesize that children with higher CM will have better results in the different variables analyzed and that the intervention group will present higher health and CM values compared to the control group.
Therefore, given the high importance that MC presents, it seems pertinent to understand how MC and clinical markers of cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes are related. To do this, we used metabolic syndrome (MetS) as a clinical marker, which is a set of essentially cardiovascular risk factors based on abdominal obesity.
In addition to this relationship and recognizing the importance of CM in promoting active and healthy lifestyles, it is pertinent to understand how CM relates to health-related quality of life (HRQoL).
To this end, we propose to evaluate MC (stabilizing, locomotor and object manipulation tests), cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular fitness, physical activity, blood pressure, measurement of biochemical markers (fasting capillary blood glucose, total cholesterol; triglycerides; HDL and capillary LDL), nutritional assessment (weight, height, BMI, skinfolds, perimeters, body composition, bone strength and dietary pattern) and HRQoL. Additionally, we intend to understand how the variables behave when subjected to a motor intervention (carrying out 3 physical education classes per week) compared to a control group (only 1 physical education class per week) for 4 months. We hypothesize that children with higher CM will have better results in the different variables analyzed and that the intervention group will present higher health and CM values compared to the control group.