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Research Article: Effectiveness of Physical-Literacy-Based Online Education on Indices of Physical Fitness in High-School Adolescents: Intervention Study during the COVID-19 Pandemic Period

Date Published: 2023-10-08

Abstract:
There is a global consensus that physical literacy (PL) is an important determinant of physical fitness (PF), but studies have rarely examined the effects of PL-based interventions on PF. The aim of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of specific online video-based PL intervention on PF indices in high-school students from Croatia. Participants were 423 high-school adolescents (295 girls, 128 boys; 14-to-18 years of age), divided into an intervention group (n = 230) and a control group (n = 193). The intervention lasted 12 weeks. Educational video materials were disseminated to the intervention group by the closed social network during the pandemic period. Variables included height, mass, BMI, cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), and power, strength, and flexibility indices. Pre- to post-testing design was applied, with two-way analysis of variance for repeated measurement (Time × Group). Applied intervention induced positive effects in CRF (the intervention group improved their capacities, while no changes occurred in the control group) and BMI (the intervention group retained their BMI levels at the pre-testing level, while BMI of the control group slightly increased over the course of the study), with better effectiveness in girls than in boys. No effects were evidenced for other variables. The positive effects of applied educational intervention on BMI and CRF are encouraging knowing that both indices are related to health status.

Introduction:
Adequate physical activity (PA) is one of the essential determinants of health status and is a pillar of lifestyle medicine [1,2,3]. However, there is a great prevalence of people with insufficient physical activity levels (PALs), with the most alarming situation among adolescents (i.e., 81% of adolescents globally do not have sufficient PALs) [4]. Namely, the biggest drop in PAL happens during the transition from childhood to adolescence; it appears at around 14 years of age and linearly drops during adolescence…

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