Secular trends in physical fitness and nutritional status among Tibetan children and adolescents from 2005 to 2019: a secondary analysis of four CNSSCH surveys.

Authors

Meng Yuan, Feng Peng, Bowen Song, Chenyu Liu, Xiaotong Zhang, Ming Li, Shuangshuang Sun, Desheng Li, Zhengwen Chen, Yi Sun

Published in

Frontiers in nutrition. Volume 13. Pages 1891556. Epub Sep 30, 2026.

Abstract

This study aimed to assess the long-term trends in physical fitness and their relationship with nutritional status among children and adolescents in Tibet from 2005 to 2019.
This secondary analysis initially included 9,818 Tibetan children and adolescents aged 7-18 years from four waves of the Chinese National Survey on Students' Constitution and Health (CNSSCH), conducted in 2005, 2010, 2014, and 2019. After data cleaning, 9,237 participants were retained for the final analysis. Statistical analyses included one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) for continuous variables and chi-square tests for categorical variables to compare physical fitness indicators and nutritional status across survey years, supplemented by trend analyses. Fractional polynomial regression was employed to assess the relationship between Physical Fitness Index (PFI) and body mass index Z-score (BMI Z-score). Additionally, generalized additive models (GAMs) were used to assess the associations between PFI and adverse nutritional status (thinness, overweight, and obesity), with results expressed as odds ratios (ORs).
From 2005 to 2019, the PFI increased by 4.91 units among Tibetan children and adolescents, accompanied by an initial increase followed by a decline in the proportion of thinness, whereas overweight/obesity increased over the study period. Fractional polynomial regression revealed an inverted U-shaped association between BMI Z-score and PFI, with physical fitness being lower in children and adolescents with thinness or overweight/obesity than in those with normal weight. Further analyses based on prevalence and ORs showed that, as PFI decreased, the prevalence and odds of thinness increased more sharply than those of overweight/obesity. Using PFI values of -5 and 5 as representative examples, the estimated ORs for thinness at PFI = -5 ranged from 1.53 to 1.88 across survey years, whereas the corresponding ORs for overweight/obesity ranged from 1.10 to 1.75; at PFI = 5, the corresponding ORs declined to 0.16-0.43 for thinness and 0.49-0.90 for overweight/obesity.
Although physical fitness improved among Tibetan children and adolescents over the study period, both thinness and overweight/obesity were associated with less favorable physical fitness. These findings suggest that maintaining an appropriate weight status may be important for promoting favorable physical fitness development among children and adolescents.

PMID:
42876617
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 15 Oct 2026.

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