Background/Purpose: Children's body fat is frequently reported to be associated with other fitness components. To better understand the relationship, this study was intended to examine how BMI-for-age percentile would predict PACER performance among sixth graders.
Method: Standard assessments were given to 109 girls and 95 boys in sixth grade to obtain their BMI-for-age percentile and 20-meter PACER performance (laps). Simple regressions were used to specify regression equations, evaluating the prediction of the PACER laps from BMI-for-age percentile for girls and boys, respectively.
Analysis/Results: For girls, predicted PACER laps = 30.10 - 0.13 × BMI-for-age percentile, with 95% CI of -.19 to -.07 for the slop. The regression is significant (p < .001) as F(1, 107) = 18.10. Accuracy in predicting the PACER performance is indicated with r = -.38 (p < .001), which accounts for 14.4% (r2 = 14.44) of the variance of PACER predicted from the BMI-for-age percentile. As for boys, predicted PACER laps = 44.95 - .26 × BMI-for-age percentile, with 95% CI of -.34 to -.17 for the slop. The regression is significant (p < .001) with F(1, 93) = 37.81. The r value of -.54 (p < .001) explains approximately 29% (r2 = 29.16) of the variance of PACER performance.
Conclusions: The prediction is more accurate for boys than for girls, and higher BMI-for-age percentile is associated with poorer PACER performance. Specifically, one percentile higher in BMI-for-age will result in 0.13 lap less for girls or 0.26 lap less for boys, on average, in PACER performance for sixth graders.