Physical performance and academic achievement in normal-weight, overweight and obese preadolescents

Objective: To examine the relationship between physical performance and academic achievement in middle school students in Southern Italy.One hundred and eighty-eight children (12.41.0 years) were categorized into normal-weight (41 boys and 64 girls), overweight (28 boys and 24 girls) or obese (16 boys and 15 girls) groups, according to body mass index (BMI) cut-off points (Cole et al., 2000). Age-appropriate field based tests of standing long jump (SLJ), 2-Kg medicine-ball throw (MBT), 10x5 m shuttle run, and 30m sprint were administered to the participants. Teacher ratings on a 5-point scale were used to assess child’s achievement in Italian, mathematics, foreigner language, arts, music, physical education and total academic achievement. ANOVA 2 (gender)x 3 (group) was applied to each dependent variable.Girls compared to boys (p0.001), and obese subjects compared to normal-weight (p0.001) and overweight peers (p<0.01) showed poorer physical performance on weight-bearing tasks. Boys reported lower scores in total academic achievement (p<0.01), Italian (p0.005), foreigner language (p<0.002), arts and music (p0.001) than girls. Normal-weight students had signifi cantly higher overall academic achievement and arts scores compared to overweight and obese peers (p<0.05).Obese subjects reported lower mean physical education score than normalweight ones (p<0.05). BMI was negatively correlated with SLJ (p<0.001) and total academic achievement (p<0.005), and positively correlated with sprint times (p<0.001).