The European Network for the Support of Development of Systems for Monitoring Physical Fitness of Children and Adolescents
▶Summary
Background Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) have become the leading cause of global mortality in the 21st century, with direct health care costs reaching 11.7 billion $ per year. European policies encourage member states to monitor physical fitness in schoolchildren as an indicator of health risk. Given the importance of physical fitness for physical and mental health, reliable and timely information on childhood physical fitness trends is crucial to informing national and regional policy-making. Objectives The FitBack project had two major objectives: 1. The online application for children, adolescents, parents, teachers, physicians and coaches provides user-friendly graphical reporting on the physical fitness of an individual (or group) based on calculated reference values2. An info point on the FitBack web platform for policy makers on local, regional and national level (target groups) containing essential information about establishing fitness monitoring systems for children and adolescents Implementation The FitBack project 1) reviewed child fitness testing in Europe, 2) set good practice in diagnosing child physical fitness, 3) created a database of centile values for child fitness tests, 4) developed a model of health risk assessment from the physical fitness testing results, 5) created a free, multilingual web platform to make reports, (including pilot testing the platform) and 6) completed project dissemination nationally and internationally via traditional media, social media and others. Achievements Key results: 1) publishing guidelines for designing a monitoring system, 2) measurement characteristics of fitness tests, 3) European national representative database, 4) creating criteria for health risk assessment, 5) the FitBack online application and web platform, 6) pilot testing report, 7) recommendations for children with special needs 8) a toolkit to instruct teachers and coaches on how to use the FitBack platform.