Associação entre o nível socioeconômico da escola e a aptidão física relacionada à saúde de crianças e adolescentes

Abstract

The levels of physical activity and fitness of children and adolescents have decreased in Brazil and worldwide despite efforts to promote these important health attributes. This concerns health professionals due to its risks to current and future health. The objective of this study was to test the association between the socioeconomic level of the school and the health-related physical fitness of children and adolescents. This is a cross-sectional association study in which 654 students from two state elementary schools 2 participated, intentionally selected by location and socioeconomic level of a medium-sized city in southern Brazil. INSE surveyed the socioeconomic level from SAEB (2021), and physical fitness was assessed using tests suggested by PROESP-BR (2021). The results are categorized as adequate and not adequate for health according to the PROESP-BR criteria by sex and age. The X2 test for proportions was used to test possible associations between schools (p<0.05). The age of the students (6th to 9th grade) ranged from 10 to 15 years (10 years 15.6%, 11 years 26.5%, 12 years 22.2%, 13 years 20.9%, 14 years 10.9% and 15 years 4%). The BMI classified 73.1% of the boys and 72.7% of the girls as adequate for health. Similar values were observed for the waist-to-height ratio (WhtR) and localized muscular resistance (LMR). A high proportion of students who met the criteria for health was observed along tests except for cardiorespiratory fitness assessed by the 6-minute walk/run test in which only 11.6% of the boys and 15.4% of the girls were classified as being in the adequate zone for health. In this study, the difference in the socioeconomic level of the schools did not indicate differences in the classification of the students. The small sample size and slight difference in SES may not have been sufficient to detect possible differences. The test results did not detect significant differences between schools.