Is there any relationship between functional movement and weight status? A study in Spanish school-age children

Background: to examine relations between functional movement patterns and weight status in Spanish primary school children and to determine the differences between sexes. Methods: three hundred and thirty-three, 6-13 years old children (164 boys and 169 girls), participated in this study. The main outcome measures were the body mass index (BMI) and the Functional Movement Screen (TM) (FMS). Children were classified as normal weight (NW), overweight (OV) or obese (OB) according to international cut-offs. Results: total FMS score was negatively correlated with BMI (p < 0.001). FMS score was different between children from NW, OV and OB groups (p = 0.001), lower with the increased BMI (p < 0.001 between all groups). Significant differences (p < 0.05) between NW, OV and OB were found in deep squat, hurdle step, in-line lunge, shoulder mobility, straight leg-raise and push-up tests. As for the sex differences, girls obtained higher scores (p < 0.05) in in-line lunge, shoulder mobility and straight leg-raise, whereas boys did it in push-up (p = 0.044) test. Conclusions: these results confirm that total FMS score significantly and inversely correlates with BMI in a group of 333 school-age children. As for the sex differences, girls outperform boys in movements requiring flexibility and balance, whilst boys outperform girls in tests where muscular strength is required.