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Investigating relationships between body mass index, aerobic fitness and asthma in pre-pubescent children / HAYLEY LEWIS

Swansea University Author: HAYLEY LEWIS

Abstract

Asthma is one of the main chronic diseases of childhood and there are over 416,000 asthmarelateddeaths worldwide every year (SIJU, 2016). Without controlling asthma symptoms,respiratory failure can occur and may result in mortality (Nurmagambetov et al., 2018).Asthma and obesity are often found conc...

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Published: Swansea University, Wales, UK 2024
Institution: Swansea University
Degree level: Master of Research
Degree name: MSc by Research
Supervisor: Mason, L
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa65878
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Abstract: Asthma is one of the main chronic diseases of childhood and there are over 416,000 asthmarelateddeaths worldwide every year (SIJU, 2016). Without controlling asthma symptoms,respiratory failure can occur and may result in mortality (Nurmagambetov et al., 2018).Asthma and obesity are often found concurrently in children, but it is yet unknown if asthmaindependently contributes to the increasing childhood obesity epidemic (Chen et al., 2017).The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the potential relationship between body massindex and cardiorespiratory fitness in children with and without asthma in a rural Welshprimary school and secondly, to determine the influence of parental understanding andphysical activity levels on these variables.For this study, primary school children aged 9.6 (±1.1) years were used who were of a mix ofhealthy, overweight, and obese BMI. The children had a mean height of 142.7cm (±9.2) andmass of 38.7kg (±10.0). Participating in the study were 38 boys and 40 girls. During thetesting, variables were tested for including, height, body mass, peak flow, FVC, FEV1, andmultistage fitness test. Parental information was also gathered through a parentalquestionnaire. All children completed all testing, and the results were grouped according toBMI or asthma diagnosis.Children with asthma performed worse than non-asthmatics in the multistage fitness test (3.1± 1.6 compared to 3.4 ± 1.2, P=0.034)), and these results were also produced with childrenwho had high BMI who also scored low on the multistage fitness which showed low physicalfitness in both overweight and obese children as well as those with asthma. Linear regressionwas carried out to assess whether BMI is predictive of the multistage fitness test scores.There was a statistically significant negative correlation reported between the variables (t=-2.691, P=.009, R= 0.088). Results from the parental questionnaire found parents whoreported taking part in regular physical activity also reported regular physical activity fortheir children (N=58), whilst all parents reported to discourage physical activity participationin those that had children with asthma (N=11).
Item Description: Part of this thesis has been redacted to protect personal information
Keywords: Sport and Exercise Science
College: Faculty of Science and Engineering
Funders: Student Finance Wales