Children and adolescents in Europe are not reaching adequate levels of physical fitness in terms of strength, flexibility and body composition, a new study has found.
There has been a decline in paediatric health-related physical fitness from 1990 to the present, researchers at the University of Zaragoza found.
The findings, published in the journal Sports Medicine – Open, detailed changes in the main indicators of physical health: muscular strength, flexibility, body composition and cardiorespiratory fitness.
These components are key determinants of both the current and future health of this population, meaning that “we are missing a major opportunity that will be difficult to recover”, the authors said.
The study analysed 417,362 participants aged 6 to 16 from 20 European countries, spanning 1965 to 2023.
