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. 2024 May 23;12(6):142.
doi: 10.3390/sports12060142.

Differences and Relationship between Body Composition and Motor Coordination in Children Aged 6-7 Years

Vladan Pelemiš  1 , Slobodan Pavlović  2 , Danimir Mandić  1 , Milan Radaković  3 , Dragan Branković  1 , Vladimir Živanović  1 , Zoran Milić  4 , Senad Bajrić  5
Affiliations

Differences and Relationship between Body Composition and Motor Coordination in Children Aged 6-7 Years

Vladan Pelemiš et al. Sports (Basel). .

Abstract

Background: The primary goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between body composition and motor coordination performance, and the secondary goal was to determine sex differences in body composition and motor coordination of preschool children.

Methods: Forty-eight children (23 boys and 25 girls) underwent assessments for body composition and motor coordination using the Köperkoordinationstest für Kinder (KTK).

Results: Linear regression analysis revealed significant associations between body composition and motor coordination in boys (p < 0.05) but not in girls. In boys, Body height (p = 0.01), Total muscle mass (p = 0.03), Total fat (p = 0.03), and Total water (p = 0.02) show statistically significant influence on single-leg jumps. Similar results were obtained for lateral jumps where there was a statistically significant influence of Body height (p = 0.01), Total muscle mass (p = 0.03), and Total water (p = 0.02). Interestingly, predictive variables showed no statistically significant influence on KTK overall score in boys (p = 0.42) nor in girls (p = 0.90).

Conclusions: The predictive system of morphological variables demonstrated significance only among boys in this age group and sample. Girls outperformed boys due to early maturation, resulting in better average KTK scores.

Keywords: KTK test; motor skills; preschool age; relations.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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