Department of Sport, Exercise and Health, University of Basel, Switzerland.
Department of Intervention Research in Exercise Training, German Sport University Cologne, Germany.
J Child Health Care. 2023 Sep;27(3):424-434. doi: 10.1177/13674935221078368. Epub 2022 Mar 1.
Primary health prevention in at-risk children is receiving increased attention while less information is available on cardiovascular profile and response to exercise in healthy children. Our study examined the effects of a gross motor skill-based exercise intervention on micro- and macro-vascular health in preschoolers. This is a sub-study of a five-armed clinical trial with six kindergartens and 68 children. Four kindergartens were assigned to the intervention group (INT) and two to control groups (CON). We performed gross motor skill assessment (TGMD-2), static retinal vessel analysis, and measurements of central hemodynamics before and after the intervention. INT received one weekly exercise session for 25 weeks, while CON received no intervention. We calculated linear regressions correcting for age, sex, BMI-percentile, and baseline. We observed favorable effects in TGMD-2 for INT over CON (Cohen's = 0.52 95% CI [0.15; 0.90]). Trivial between-group differences were observed in retinal vessel diameters (0.08 < ≤ 0.29) and trivial to moderate differences in all other arterial stiffness parameters (-0.55 < ≤ 0.31). Motor-skill based interventions are sensible measures to incorporate physical activity in pre-schools and improve gross motor proficiency at a very young age. The potential of motor skill-based interventions as primordial prevention strategy in healthy preschoolers needs to be further investigated.
在高风险儿童中进行初级卫生预防越来越受到关注，而关于健康儿童心血管状况和对运动的反应的信息却较少。我们的研究检查了基于粗大运动技能的运动干预对学龄前儿童微血管和大血管健康的影响。这是一项五臂临床试验的子研究，涉及六所幼儿园和 68 名儿童。四所幼儿园被分配到干预组（INT），两所幼儿园被分配到对照组（CON）。我们在干预前后进行了粗大运动技能评估（TGMD-2）、静态视网膜血管分析和中心血液动力学测量。INT 每周接受一次运动课程，共 25 周，而 CON 则不接受任何干预。我们计算了线性回归，校正了年龄、性别、BMI 百分位数和基线。我们观察到 INT 在 TGMD-2 方面优于 CON（Cohen's = 0.52 95%CI [0.15; 0.90]）。视网膜血管直径存在微小的组间差异（0.08 < ≤ 0.29），所有其他动脉僵硬度参数存在微小到中度的差异（-0.55 < ≤ 0.31）。基于运动技能的干预措施是在幼儿园中纳入体育活动并在非常年幼时提高粗大运动技能的明智措施。需要进一步研究基于运动技能的干预措施作为健康学龄前儿童原始预防策略的潜力。
