Body mass index and fitness in high-functioning children and adolescents with cerebral palsy: What happened over a decade?
Fitness skills improved but BMI rose and aerobic fitness stayed stuck in high-functioning youth with CP over ten years.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team tracked body-mass index and fitness in high-functioning kids and teens with cerebral palsy.
They compared 2004 and 2014 scores to see what changed over ten years.
What they found
Performance fitness skills got better.
BMI went up at the same time.
Aerobic capacity stayed flat and did not improve.
How this fits with other research
Whitehouse et al. (2014) show the story keeps going: the same kids grow into adults who move even less and face higher heart risk.
Griffith et al. (2012) add that better movement skills help kids with CP stay active, so the flat aerobic numbers in Maremka’s study may reflect missed skill work.
Carter et al. (2011) used the same long-term tracking idea for thinking skills and also found splits tied to motor level, showing fitness and cognition both need early watchful eyes.
Why it matters
You can’t trust performance gains alone. Pair every strength or balance goal with aerobic work and weight check-ins. Start early, watch BMI, and keep VO₂ on the radar so kids don’t slide into the inactive adult pattern Whitehouse et al. (2014) describe.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: In recent decades, improving fitness has become an important goal in rehabilitation medicine in children and adolescents with cerebral palsy (CP). AIMS: To compare body mass index (BMI), performance-related fitness, and cardiorespiratory fitness of children with CP measured in 2014 with a comparable sample from 2004. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: In total, 25 high-functioning children with CP (i.e., GMFCS I-II) measured in 2004 (13 boys; mean age 13.2 (2.6) years) were matched to 25 children measured in 2014. Outcomes included body mass and BMI, muscle power sprint test (MPST), 10×5m sprint test, and a shuttle run test (SRT). Data of 15 participants from 2004 (10 boys; mean age 12.6 (2.5) years) were matched and analysed for VO2peak. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Body mass and BMI were higher (both: p<0.05) in the 2014 cohort compared to the 2004 cohort. Further, performance-related fitness was better for the 2014 cohort on the MPST (p=0.004), the 10×5m sprint test (p=0.001), and the SRT (p<0.001). However, there were no differences for VO2peak. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: In high-funcitoning children with CP, there are positive ecological time trends in performance-related fitness, but not in VO2peak between 2004 and 2014. The substantial higher body mass and BMI is alarming and requires further investigation.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2017 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2017.09.021