Relación entre el índice de masa corporal y las habilidades de locomoción en escolares de primaria

Body Mass Index (BMI) is a widely used indicator in pediatric populations. Studies link a high BMI with lower motor coordination and risk of overweight in children.To relate BMI with locomotion skills (LH) in schoolchildren of both sexes from a state school in Chile. 70 schoolchildren (35 boys and 35 girls) with an average age of 10.1±0.37 years belonging to municipal schools participated. Weight and height were evaluated with the aim of calculating the BMI categorizing by international guidelines for children and adolescents, on the other hand, the HL was evaluated by means of the TGMD-2 test. Student’s t-test was used for comparison between sexes and Pearson's correlation test for the relationship between the study variables.There was a negative correlation between BMI and LH in both sexes. In boys it was-0.24 (p<0.05) and in girls it was 0.16 (p<0.05). Children of both sexes showed better performance in the LH when they were categorized as normal weight compared to those with excess weight (EW) (p<0.05).There was a negative relationship between BMI and LH, which allows highlighting that EW in children of both sexes can be a relevant factor conditioning LH performance in children of both sexes.