HEALTH AND SKILLS RELATED FITNESS INDICATORS IN ALBANIAN CHILDREN – REFERENCE VALUES FROM A COUNTRY IN TRANSITION

The aims of this study were to analyze age and gender differences for health-related fitness, physical activity and gross motor coordination level in Albanian children. Data consisted of a cross-sectional study of 1176 children between first and fourth grade elementary school (618 boys and 558 girls) aged 7-10 years old). Anthropometrics (body mass and height, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, % body fat), level of gross motor coordination (Korperkoordinationstest fur Kinder, KTK) and physical activity by questionnaire (PAQ-C) were assessed. Gross motor coordination and physical activity level increased until 9 years of age and then declined. Significant gender differences (P ≤ 0.05) were found for body mass, BMI and waist circumference where boys were heavier, had higher BMI scores and had greater values in waist circumference measurement then girls. Data obtained from this study showed that boys and girls in all age group fell into the normal level of physical activity. The results from this investigation study reveal strong evidence that children in Albania show motor difficulties in everyday skills (moderate motor disorder-31.2% and severe motor disorder-8%.   Article visualizations

A COMPARISON OF THE ANTHROPOMETRIC PARAMETERS BETWEEN BASKETBALL PLAYERS, HANDBALL PLAYERS AND VOLLEYBALL PLAYERS

The purpose of this study was to compare the anthropometric measurement to the professional players of the three different disciplines of basketball, handball and volleyball. . For each player anthropometric measurements such as weight, body height, waist circumference, BMI and skinfold calculation on different sports are performed. Differences in terms of anthropometric measurements were assessed by independent static tests and the differences for each variable for each sport were evaluated with the ANOVA method with the Post Hoc test. As a conclusion in this study, the results of this study showed that the anthropometric measurements of professional players of the three main sports varied among them, while there were no significant differences between sports for the measurement of biceps and suprailliac fat. According to this study, sports have different demands on anthropometric attributes, which are specific to each professional player of three basketball, volleyball and handball sports. Therefore, for this variety of outcomes, coaches need to create training programs according to the sport's specifications and every sportsman in the field.  Article visualizations

THE PERFORMANCE OF THE CHANGES INTRODUCED IN SOME MORPHOLOGICAL AND BASIC MOTOR VARIABLES SPECIFIC TO BASKETBALL PLAYERS OF BOTH SEXES AGED 15-16 YEARS

The working-experimentation, treats young basketball players aged 15-16 years (boys and girls), who in addition to attending classes, physical education and sport in schools they practice basketball in Pristina. The working-experiment contains a total of 7 morphological variables and four tests of basic motor skills and seven variables are situational motor abilities. In this research, it applied methods of t-test between morphological variables and basic motor skills and specific. Experimentation in question includes the number of 70 entities of both sexes; the group of 35 boys and the other group consist of 35 girls who have undergone the tests provided for this experiment.  Article visualizations

Values-based education: The development of a questionnaire

This study focuses on the development of an instrument that measures and evaluates the Attitudes of Children towards Values in Physical Education (ACHV-PE) class. This research is a collection of four phases. The first phase focused on content validity and item construction of the questionnaire. The second phase was a pilot-testing of the instrument to a group of students. Lastly, ( n =449) students from seven International Schools located in Tirana, Albanian, and Rome, Italy were recruited for the third and the fourth phases. These two phases were based on Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis, to assess and confirm the factor structure. From our data, Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin value was 0.870, and Bartlett's test of sphericity was significant ( p < 0.001). The CFA demonstrated a good model fit indices. From the results obtained in each phase, we established the content validity and reliability of the ACHV-PE questionnaire with 17 items

Establishing the validity and reliability of the ACHV-PE questionnaire into the Spanish language

Values are responsible for our attitudes, behaviours, and beliefs. They guide our thoughts and define who we are. The main purpose of this study was to establish the validity and reliability of the questionnaire "Attitudes of Children towards Values in Physical Education (ACHV-PE)" into the Spanish language. A total of eight hundred and two (N= 802) student, age 10-15 years old, between the 6th and 8th grade, participated in this study. The process of validity was based on translation and back-translation of the questionnaire, pilot-testing it to a group of students and the Factor Analysis. The Exploratory Factor Analysis showed five factors with the Eigenvalues of 6.24 and 1.06, accounting for 60.28 % of the variance. Confirmatory Factor Analysis demonstrated a good fit for the five-factor solution. Regarding the results obtained, we can conclude that the questionnaire ACHV-PE can be considered valid and reliable for measuring and evaluating the attitudes of children towards values in Physical Education classes in Spanish speaking countries

Practical steps needed to achieve impact of the WHO 2019 movement behaviour guidelines for children under the age of 5 : the SUNRISE Study Europe Group evaluation

The World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines for the ‘24-h movement behaviours’1 (physical activity (PA), sedentary behaviour (SB) including screen time, and sleep) in the under-5s were published in April 2019 (Supplementary Figure S1).2 The guidelines were developed as a response to the childhood obesity pandemic,2 to help ensure that under-5s have healthy levels of PA, screen time, and sleep. Evidence review and synthesis showed that these behaviours influenced a wide range of other outcomes, with substantial short-term and long-term consequences (e.g., cognitive, social and emotional development; language development; cardiometabolic health; bone and skeletal health; motor development; physical fitness; growth; and wellbeing).2 Five years later, it is now appropriate to test whether key actions in response to these guidelines were taken across Europe, and to consider ways of increasing the impact of the WHO Guidelines across Europe in the next 5 years. Therefore, the SUNRISE Study Europe Group considered three tests to examine if European public health policy and clinical practice were sufficiently responsive to the WHO Guidelines: (1) Do European nations have national guidelines for the movement behaviours in the under-5s or have they adopted/adapted the WHO Guidelines? (2) Do they have adequate surveillance of the movement behaviours in these age groups? (3) Do they have specific movement behaviour policies for children under-5

Height and body-mass index trajectories of school-aged children and adolescents from 1985 to 2019 in 200 countries and territories: a pooled analysis of 2181 population-based studies with 65 million participants

Summary Background Comparable global data on health and nutrition of school-aged children and adolescents are scarce. We aimed to estimate age trajectories and time trends in mean height and mean body-mass index (BMI), which measures weight gain beyond what is expected from height gain, for school-aged children and adolescents. Methods For this pooled analysis, we used a database of cardiometabolic risk factors collated by the Non-Communicable Disease Risk Factor Collaboration. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends from 1985 to 2019 in mean height and mean BMI in 1-year age groups for ages 5–19 years. The model allowed for non-linear changes over time in mean height and mean BMI and for non-linear changes with age of children and adolescents, including periods of rapid growth during adolescence. Findings We pooled data from 2181 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in 65 million participants in 200 countries and territories. In 2019, we estimated a difference of 20 cm or higher in mean height of 19-year-old adolescents between countries with the tallest populations (the Netherlands, Montenegro, Estonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina for boys; and the Netherlands, Montenegro, Denmark, and Iceland for girls) and those with the shortest populations (Timor-Leste, Laos, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea for boys; and Guatemala, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Timor-Leste for girls). In the same year, the difference between the highest mean BMI (in Pacific island countries, Kuwait, Bahrain, The Bahamas, Chile, the USA, and New Zealand for both boys and girls and in South Africa for girls) and lowest mean BMI (in India, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste, Ethiopia, and Chad for boys and girls; and in Japan and Romania for girls) was approximately 9–10 kg/m2. In some countries, children aged 5 years started with healthier height or BMI than the global median and, in some cases, as healthy as the best performing countries, but they became progressively less healthy compared with their comparators as they grew older by not growing as tall (eg, boys in Austria and Barbados, and girls in Belgium and Puerto Rico) or gaining too much weight for their height (eg, girls and boys in Kuwait, Bahrain, Fiji, Jamaica, and Mexico; and girls in South Africa and New Zealand). In other countries, growing children overtook the height of their comparators (eg, Latvia, Czech Republic, Morocco, and Iran) or curbed their weight gain (eg, Italy, France, and Croatia) in late childhood and adolescence. When changes in both height and BMI were considered, girls in South Korea, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and some central Asian countries (eg, Armenia and Azerbaijan), and boys in central and western Europe (eg, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, and Montenegro) had the healthiest changes in anthropometric status over the past 3·5 decades because, compared with children and adolescents in other countries, they had a much larger gain in height than they did in BMI. The unhealthiest changes—gaining too little height, too much weight for their height compared with children in other countries, or both—occurred in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, New Zealand, and the USA for boys and girls; in Malaysia and some Pacific island nations for boys; and in Mexico for girls. Interpretation The height and BMI trajectories over age and time of school-aged children and adolescents are highly variable across countries, which indicates heterogeneous nutritional quality and lifelong health advantages and risks