Background/Purpose: Motor skill acquisition and competency is an important developmental facet of childhood, enabling children to participate in physical activity and maintain health. Physically fit children also perform better academically than their peers. A large academic discrepancy is evident between children attending suburban and urban schools. The purpose of this study was to determine if a motor skill and BMI discrepancy is evident between the same population groups.
Method: Three hundred and eight (152 males, 158 females) 7-9 year old children from four mid Michigan schools participated in this study. Surveys were used to collect demographic data and anthropometry measures were collected with standardized procedures. Motor skills were assessed using the TGMD-2.
Analysis/Results: Mean raw fundamental motor scores, locomotor scores, object control scores, and BMIs for Suburban / Urban schools were 68±9/63±10, 35±5/33±5, 33±6/30±6, and 17±3/19±5 respectively, showing students in the suburban school performed significantly better than students in the urban schools. Students in the suburban school also had significantly lower mean BMIs than students in the urban schools. Significant differences in motor skills were also seen by age between suburban and urban children. T-tests indicated a significant difference between children's raw fundamental motor skill scores, locomotor scores, object control scores and BMI (p< .001). ANOVA analysis indicated a significant age differences between same population groups (p<.001).
Conclusions: The results show significantly lower motor skill competence and higher BMIs in young children in urban schools, suggesting their may be an important need to focus on motor skill interventions in this population.