Covid pandemic effects on the physical fitness of primary school children. Results of the German EMOTIKON project.

Autor/inn/en	Teich, Paula; Fühner, Thea Heidi; Bähr, Florian; Puta, Christian; Granacher, Urs; Kliegl, Reinhold
Titel	Covid pandemic effects on the physical fitness of primary school children. Results of the German EMOTIKON project. Gefälligkeitsübersetzung: Auswirkungen der Covid-Pandemie auf die körperliche Fitness von Grundschulkindern. Ergebnisse des deutschen EMOTIKON-Projekts.
Quelle	In: Sports medicine - open, 9 (2023) Art. 77, 19 S. PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	2198-9761; 2199-1170
DOI	10.1186/s40798-023-00624-1
Schlagwörter	Leistungsfähigkeit; Motorische Leistungsfähigkeit; Test; Kind; Schüler; Gleichgewichtssinn; Muskelkraft; Physische Leistungsfähigkeit; COVID-19; Ausdauer; Fitness; Kinder- und Jugendsport; Sportmedizin; Sportphysiologie; Springen; Sprint; Grundschulalter; Einflussfaktor; Entwicklung; Koordination; Leistung; Brandenburg; Deutschland-BRD
Abstract	Background: In spring of 2020, the Sars-CoV-2 incidence rate increased rapidly in Germany and around the world. Throughout the next 2 years, schools were temporarily closed and social distancing measures were put in place to slow the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Did these social restrictions and temporary school lockdowns affect children's physical fitness? The EMOTIKON project annually tests the physical fitness of all third-graders in the Federal State of Brandenburg, Germany. The tests assess cardiorespiratory endurance (6-min-run test), coordination (star-run test), speed (20-m sprint test), lower (powerLOW, standing long jump test), and upper (powerUP, ball-push test) limbs muscle power, and static balance (one-legged stance test with eyes closed). A total of 125,893 children were tested in the falls from 2016 to 2022. Primary analyses focused on 98,510 keyage third-graders (i.e., school enrollment according to the legal key date, aged 8 to 9 years) from 515 schools. Secondary analyses included 27,383 older-than-keyage third-graders (i.e., OTK, delayed school enrollment or repetition of a grade, aged 9 to 10 years), who have been shown to exhibit lower physical fitness than expected for their age. Linear mixed models fitted pre-pandemic quadratic secular trends, and took into account differences between children and schools. Results: Third-graders exhibited lower cardiorespiratory endurance, coordination, speed and powerUP in the Covid pandemic cohorts (2020-2022) compared to the pre-pandemic cohorts (2016-2019). Children's powerLOW and static balance were higher in the pandemic cohorts compared to the pre-pandemic cohorts. From 2020 to 2021, coordination, powerLOW and powerUP further declined. Evidence for some post-pandemic physical fitness catch-up was restricted to powerUP. Cohen's \|ds\| for comparisons of the pandemic cohorts 2020-2022 with pre-pandemic cohorts 2016-2019 ranged from 0.02 for powerLOW to 0.15 for coordination. Within the pandemic cohorts, keyage children exhibited developmental losses ranging from approximately 1 month for speed to 5 months for cardiorespiratory endurance. For powerLOW and static balance, the positive pandemic effects translate to developmental gains of 1 and 7 months, respectively. Pre-pandemic secular trends may account for some of the observed differences between pandemic and pre-pandemic cohorts, especially in powerLOW, powerUP and static balance. The pandemic further increased developmental delays of OTK children in cardiorespiratory endurance, powerUP and balance. Conclusions: The Covid-19 pandemic was associated with declines in several physical fitness components in German third-graders. Pandemic effects are still visible in 2022. Health-related interventions should specifically target those physical fitness components that were negatively affected by the pandemic (cardiorespiratory endurance, coordination, speed). (Autor).
Erfasst von	Bundesinstitut für Sportwissenschaft, Bonn
Update	2024/1