Ljubičić Sanja, Petrić Vilko, Antekolović Ljubomir
Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Rijeka.
Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Zagreb.
PLoS One. 2025 Sep 26;20(9):e0333500. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0333500. eCollection 2025.
Although it has been confirmed that overweight and obesity may have negative impact on jumping performance in school-aged children and adolescents, little evidence has been provided for pre-school children. The findings have provided inconclusive results, but mostly that overweight and obese pre-school children do not have an impaired jumping performance, in comparison to their normal weight peers. Therefore, the main purpose of the study was to examine the differences between normal weight and overweight/obese pre-school children in jumping performance outcomes and their correlations with anthropometric indices. Four-hundred and eleven pre-school children with the mean (SD) age = 4.9 (1.1) years, height = 111.2 (9.3) cm, weight = 20.0 (4.2) kg, 53.5% girls were recruited from 34 kindergartens in four major cities. Anthropometric indices included body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR). Normal weight, overweight and obesity were classified according to international norms. Jumping performance was evaluated by the countermovement jump (CMJ) without and with arm swing with Optojump system. In general, pre-school children with overweight and obesity exhibited poorer performance in vertical jumping; they had shorter flight time and flight height, lower power relative to body mass and lower relative strength index (RSI), compared to normal weight children. The strongest correlations were observed between WHtR and jumping outcomes, where higher WHtR values led to shorter flight time and flight height, and lower power relative to body mass in both boys and girls. This study adds new information related to nutritional status and jumping performance in pre-school children. Thus, overweight and obesity need to be considered, when monitoring vertical jumping performance.
尽管已有研究证实超重和肥胖可能对学龄儿童及青少年的跳跃能力产生负面影响，但针对学龄前儿童的相关证据却很少。以往研究结果并不一致，但大多表明，与体重正常的同龄人相比，超重和肥胖的学龄前儿童跳跃能力并未受损。因此，本研究的主要目的是探讨体重正常与超重/肥胖学龄前儿童在跳跃能力方面的差异，以及这些差异与人体测量指标的相关性。研究从四个主要城市的34所幼儿园招募了411名学龄前儿童，其平均（标准差）年龄为4.9（1.1）岁，身高为111.2（9.3）厘米，体重为20.0（4.2）千克，其中女孩占53.5%。人体测量指标包括体重指数（BMI）、腰臀比（WHR）和腰高比（WHtR）。根据国际标准对体重正常、超重和肥胖进行分类。使用Optojump系统通过有无摆臂的纵跳（CMJ）来评估跳跃能力。总体而言，超重和肥胖的学龄前儿童在垂直跳跃方面表现较差；与体重正常的儿童相比，他们的飞行时间和飞行高度更短，相对于体重的功率更低，相对力量指数（RSI）也更低。在WHtR与跳跃结果之间观察到最强的相关性，在男孩和女孩中，较高的WHtR值均导致飞行时间和飞行高度缩短，以及相对于体重的功率降低。本研究为学龄前儿童的营养状况和跳跃能力提供了新的信息。因此，在监测垂直跳跃能力时，需要考虑超重和肥胖因素。
