Motor proficiency and physical fitness in active and inactive girls aged 12 to 13 years

Abstract

In modern day society physical activity levels diminish rapidly among girls and may be a direct consequence of girls experiencing motor difficulties. Therefore the aim of the study was to compare motor proficiency levels and physical fitness levels among active and inactive girls (N=97), aged 12 to 13 years. The BOTMP Short Form was used to assess the girl’s motor proficiency levels and the results revealed a highly significant difference (p=0.000007**) between the groups. The Fitness-gram and Activity-gram were used to measure health-related fitness and activity levels respectively. The research indicated that only two of the variables regarding health-related fitness showed a highly significant difference with regard to the healthy fitness zone (HFZ) and needs to improvement zone (NTIZ) between the groups, namely the one-mile-run (p=0.0057**) and the push-up test (p=0.0001**). No significant difference was observed for the curl-up (p=0.7643), trunk-lift (p=0.0922), back-saver sit-and-reach (p=0.2365), shoulder-stretch left arm (p=0.7145) and shoulder-stretch right arm (p=0.2620) and percentage body fat (p=0.2365). The activity logging-chart revealed that the active girls in contrast to the inactive girls met the recommended physical activity requirements of 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity activities every day.