Relationship between fitness, birth weight and breastfeeding in adolescents of a rural village in Spain

Objectives. - Fitness in adolescence is closely related to health even in adulthood. Fitness can be improved with the practice of physical activity however other factors cannot be modified as in the case of birth weight or breastfeeding. Equipment and methods. - In this study we measured fitness of 233 students 14.76 (+/- 0.84) years through tests of the Eurofit battery such as 20 meter shuttle run test, horizontal jump, sit and reach, sit up 30 seconds, handgrip strength agility (4 x 10) and anthropometric data. Furthermore, we asked the birth weight and breastfeeding time. Results. - The results showed no significant differences in terms of breastfeeding, there were only differences in the boys in the sit up test (breastfeeding was related with better scores) and girls in flexibility (breastfeeding was related with lowers scores). Regarding the boys birth weight, a positive relationship was found between the anthropometric data and the dynamometry test; and the weight at birth. In girls, however, differences were found in several physical fitness tests with positive relationships in the aerobic endurance, hand grip strenght, sit up and horizontal jump tests. In conclusion birth weight was related with better fitness scores in girls. Additionally, for boys we found relationship with anthropometric variables. On the other hand, the time of breast milk intake did not seem to show a clear association with any of these variables. (C) 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.