Research Impact: This paper explores the European fitness landscape for children and adolescents. It provides the most up to date reference values, fitness maps and country ranking based on nearly 8 million test results from 34 countries. This study introduces the first web-based, open-access and multilingual fitness reporting platform (FitBack) providing interactive information and visual mapping of the European fitness landscape. From a health perspective, very low fitness levels are a non-invasive indicator of poor health at both individual and group levels, which have utility for health screening and may guide public health policy. From an educational perspective, fitness testing is part of the school curriculum in many countries, and the FitBack platform offers physical education teachers an easy-to- use tool for interpreting fitness test results by sex and age.
Ortega FB, Leskošek B, Blagus R,.. O’Keeffe B, et al (2023) European fitness landscape for children and adolescents: updated reference values, fitness maps and country rankings based on nearly 8 million test results from 34 countries gathered by the FitBack network. British Journal of Sports Medicine. DOI: 10.1136/bjsports-2022-106176 (Available open access here).
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