COMPARING HEALTH-RELATED PHYSICAL FITNESS BETWEEN OLD ORDER MENNONITE AND URBAN CHILDREN IN CANADA

Modern technology in mainstream culture has contributed to a decrease in children's physical activity. Physical activity is a behavior with a strong influence on physical fitness. PURPOSE To compare health-related physical fitness between two groups of children differing on lifestyle-related physical activity: Old Order Mennonite (OOM) children in southwestern Ontario and urban children in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. METHODS One hundred sixteen boys and 115 girls aged 8.8–13.8 years participated in a battery of fitness tests called the Canadian Physical Activity, Fitness & Lifestyle Appraisal (CPAFLA). The CPAFLA includes blood pressure and resting heart rate measures, anthropometric measures (height, weight, waist girth, skin-folds), a strength measure (handgrip strength), endurance measures (push-ups, partial curl-ups), and flexibility (sit-and-reach test) and aerobic (step test) measures. The data were analyzed using independent-sample t-tests. RESULTS No significant differences were detected between OOM and urban children for chronological age, resting heart rate, blood pressure, height, weight, maturational age (predicted decimal years from peak height velocity), triceps skin-folds, push-ups, partial curl-ups, and the step test. OOM children (n = 124) did have significantly greater handgrip strength (p ≤ .05) than urban children (n = 107). Also, OOM boys (n = 67) were significantly lighter (p ≤ .05) and performed significantly fewer push-ups (p ≤ .05) than urban boys (n = 49). CONCLUSION There are few differences between the health-related physical fitness of OOM and urban children in Canada. This research has been funded by the Canadian Population Health Initiative (CPHI); a program of the Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI).