The Influence of Body Size and Composition on FITNESSGRAM Test Performance

Introduction:

Body composition refers to the relative percentage of body weight that is fat mass and fat free mass. The above research study included 200 students from different intermediate schools located in Texas. This study design had been approved from the University’s Institutional Review Board. The written consent was obtained from both the participants and their parents with all the detailed information about the study. The researcher provided Gatorade promotional kits to all the participants after the research was completed.

Purpose of Study:

To regulate the impact of Body Composition on the performance of Fitness Gram.

To show the correlation between Fitness Gram Scores and Body Composition on the Percentile ranks.

To tally adjusting Fitness Gram Scores with Criterion-references Standards (CRS).

There is a significant relationship between the health and fitness. Emphasis on physical fitness and physical education is very important for sound health. The health related physical fitness develops cardiovascular endurance, muscular endurance, muscular strength, muscular flexibility, body composition.

Methods and Procedures:

The Participants were made to practice Fitness Gram test a week prior of the research.

The Fitness Gram Test kits were dispensed to all the participants order a 5 days period.

The Fitness Gram Test kits were administered on the following orders:

Body size and composition; Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run (PACER) test; Pull-up test; Curl-up test; Trunk-lift test; Push-up test; and Back-saver sit-and-reach test.

Dependent variables:

scores (laps) for the PACER test

number of correctly performed curl-ups for the curl-up test

scores (cm) for the trunk-lift test

scores (cm) for the back-saver sit-and-reach test

number of correctly performed push-ups for the push-up test

number of correctly performed pull-ups for the pull-up test

The results of age- and gender-based CRS for each of FITNESSGRAM® test components (pass/fail)

Independent variables:

sum of two-site skinfold thickness (mm)

weight (kg)

BMI (kg · m2)

gender (male = 1, female = 0)

age (years).

The Correlation coefficients were used to measure the relationship between the body-size composition and the performances on the FITNESSGRAM?® test components. Three models were developed for all the dependent variables using sum-of-skin-folds, body weight, and Body Mass Index in order to avoid collinearity; and due to strong correlation among these variables. Genders and Age also contributed for quadratic relationships. The Percentile rank for each participant was measured and analyze on both scores. For the each test component, the results of the both scores were compared to the Criterion-references Standards. Chi-square tests were carried out to determine differences between the adjusted and the unadjusted scores for each test component.

Results:

The results for this study were presented in different forms.

The Table – 1, included the qualitative data’s of the physical characteristics of the participants.

The Table – 2, included the participants’ fitness test performance scores based on age and gender. i.e., Pull Up scores was 141 (71%) out of 200 participants who couldn’t even able to perform a single pull up, as a result, the distribution was severely skewed, so the pull up scores were terminated from further analysis.

In the Table 3, the relationship between the fitness performance variables (SSF, Body Weight and BMI) and the unadjusted PACER, Curl Ups, and Pus Ups scores (p < 0.5) were displayed. The Result was significantly negatively correlated. Some of the tests like truck lift and back – saver sit and reach scores were removed from the study since they were not unrelated to the Body composition or Body size. The result from the table 3 proved that the Body weight and BMI were significantly correlated (r = 0.94, p < 0.05) as both the variables depends on body weight and height.

The Table 4 included the Quantitative data of the mean SSF, Body Weight, and BMI for the two groups of participants (i.e., Students’ score below CRS and Students’ score above or equal to CRS). There were significant differences (i.e., p < 0.05) in SSF, Body Weight, and BMI between these two groups.

The Table 5 gave a derived regression equations for each performance variables according to SSF, Body Weight, and BMI. The relationship between SSF and PACER performance was linear (i.e., r = 0.42, p < 0.05 and SEE = 15.7 laps). Additionally, the percent of additional variance was not significant i.e., F(1,197) = 1.4, p > 0.05 respectively.

In the same way, the relationship between SSF with Curl – Ups and Push. Ups were also linear with r = 0.39, p < 0.05, SEE = 14.7 Curl – Ups, and r = 0.34, p < 0.05, SEE = 8.5 Push – Ups respectively. Furthermore, the percent of additional variance were not significant for both the cases. i.e., F(1,178) = 0.02, p > 0.05 and F(1,196) = 0.23, p 0.05

The Table 6 was a contingency table that divided the unadjusted and adjusted performance scores with respect to Fitness gram CRS for both the male and female students.

Similarly, the figure – 1 showed the relationship between SSF and scores on the PACER, Curl – Up, and Push – Up tests with the scatter diagrams and the lines of best fit. The slope of the lines of linear regression indicated the inverse relationship between the Performance and SSF in both the male and female students.

In the figure 2, there was a comparison of the percentile ranks of both the unadjusted and adjusted PACER, Curl – Up, and Push – Up scores.

Conclusion:

Body composition measurements had significant moderate negative correlations with PACER, curl-up, and push-up scores (r = 0.30 to 0.49). After the performance scores were adjusted for sum of skinfolds (SSF) by regression analysis for each of these tests, CRS classifications were altered in 4.5 22.7% of the participants. It also resulted in differences of greater than 10 percentile ranks in 41–45% of the participants. Besides, adjusting scores for body size and composition will help in the explanation of health-related physical fitness status. The relationship between SSF and PACER, curl – up, and push – up scores justifies the use of adjusted scores for measuring the cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength, and endurance.

Because of the impact of body size and composition on tests, obese children barely passed the CRS for the PACER, push-up, and curl-up tests. Therefore, obese children frequently failed on the FITNESSGRAM® because of their body size and composition instead of some other component of health-related physical fitness. So, it was concluded that if obese children lost weight, then their performances on field tests would improve.

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