Relationship Between Body Fatness and Performance in Preadolescent Children

This study investigated the relationship between physical performance tests and body fatness in young children, and the extent to which differences in performance between the sexes could be explained by differences in body fatness. Measurements of age, height, weight, skinfold thicknesses, and performance scores on the vertical jump, standing broad jump, modified pull-up, 40-yard dash, and 400-yard run were obtained on 564 elementary school children in grades one through four. Although males scored significantly higher on tests requiring the ability to move body weight around, sex differences in body fatness were insignificant and did little to explain performance differences between boys and girls. The fact that body fatness accounted for such a small proportion of performance variance from children of this age emphasizes that other underlying biological and cultural factors are more important in explaining performance. (JD)