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Assessment of Growth and Development of Children and Adolescents Worldwide

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A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Children's Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2022) | Viewed by 14423

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Stevo Popovic

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Guest Editor

Faculty for Sport and Physical Education, University of Montenegro, Niksic 81400, Montenegro
Interests: anthropology of sport; social issues in sport; sport management; public health; sport sciences
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Juel Jarani

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Guest Editor

Department of Social Sciences and Education, Sport University of Tirana, 1000 Tirana, Albania
Interests: anthropology of sport; public health; sport sciences
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Growth and development represent a continuous interaction of biological processes throughout the lifespan of human beings. The quality of human growth and development are influenced by a wide range of biological and environmental factors. Biological factors, such as genetics, nutrition, gender and others, play particularly important roles in the growth and development of children and adolescents, particularly at critical periods of development. On the other hand, the environment also plays a significant role in this; environmental factors, such as physical surroundings, geographical conditions, schooling and socioeconomic status of the family, represent the sum total of physical and psychological stimulation that children and adolescents accordingly receive.

It is interesting to highlight the fact that almost half of the people of concern to the UNHCR are children and adolescents. However, there are many other stakeholders who are also interested in enhancing the growth and development of children and adolescents who have physical, psychological and social needs that must be met to enable healthy growth and development. The extent to which parents, families, local communities and entire societies are able to meet children and adolescents' developmental needs has long-term consequences for the kinds of adults they will become in the future.

Since children and adolescents are not a homogenous group, there is a universal need for the continuous monitoring of the growth and development of them worldwide, mostly due to the fact that it is necessary to understand the existing variances among them caused by differences in age, gender, maturity, social class and cultural or religious background. Taking these and many other factors into account is basic purpose of this Special Issue.

Dr. Stevo Popovic
Dr. Juel Jarani
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

stature
body height
children
WHO
growth references
misclassification

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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10 pages, 648 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Motor Development Comparison between Preterm and Full-Term Infants Using Alberta Infant Motor Scale

by Jooyeon Ko and Hyun Kyoon Lim

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(5), 3819; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph20053819 - 21 Feb 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1827

Abstract

The Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS) was developed to evaluate the motor development of infants up to 18 months of age. We studied 252 infants in three groups (105 healthy preterm infants (HPI), 50 preterm infants with brain injury (PIBI), and 97 healthy full-term infants (HFI) under 18 months, corrected age (CoA)) using AIMS. No significant differences were found among HPI, PIBI, and HFI in infants less than 3 months old, yet significant differences were noted in positional scores (p < 0.05) and total scores for those four to six months of age and seven to nine months of age. A significant difference was also found in standing items for infants over 10 months (p < 0.05). After four months, there was a difference in motor development between preterm (with and without brain injury) and full-term infants. In particular, there was a significant difference in motor development between HPI and HFI and between PIBI and HFI at four to nine months, when motor skills developed explosively (p < 0.05). After four months, motor developmental delays (10th ≥) were observed in HPI and PIBI at rates of 26% and 45.8%, respectively. Midline supine development, a representative indicator of early motor development, was slower even in healthy preterm infants than in full-term infants. AIMS has a good resolution to discriminate preterm infants who are showing insufficient motor development from 4 months to 9 months. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Assessment of Growth and Development of Children and Adolescents Worldwide)

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7 pages, 313 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Differences between Healthy-Weight and Overweight Serbian Preschool Children in Motor and Cognitive Abilities

by Boris Banjevic, Dragana Aleksic, Aleksandra Aleksic Veljkovic, Borko Katanic and Bojan Masanovic

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(18), 11325; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph191811325 - 09 Sep 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1652

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the differences between healthy-weight and overweight 5–6-year-old preschool children in fine and gross motor skills and cognitive abilities. There were 91 subjects, preschool children (41 boys and 50 girls), who participated in this cross-sectional study. The body mass index (BMI) was calculated based on measures of body height and body mass, and WHO cutoff points were used for the assessment of the children’s nutrition status. Fine motor abilities were determined using two Bruininks–Oseretsky (BOT-2) subtests, and gross motor skills are determined by the Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD-2), while cognitive abilities were tested by the School Maturity Test (TZŠ+). Based on an independent-samples t-test, a difference in two out of three variables of gross motor skills was determined: manipulative skills and total gross motor skills between healthy-weight and overweight children, while in fine motor abilities and cognitive abilities there was no difference between these two groups. Although significant differences were found only in gross motor skills between healthy and overweight preschool children but not in fine motor skills and cognitive abilities, further longitudinal studies are required to understand the mechanisms of this, including the possible role of psychological factors. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Assessment of Growth and Development of Children and Adolescents Worldwide)

17 pages, 686 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Test of Gross Motor Development-3: Item Difficulty and Item Differential Functioning by Gender and Age with Rasch Analysis

by Nadia Cristina Valentini, Marcelo Gonçalves Duarte, Larissa Wagner Zanella and Glauber Carvalho Nobre

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(14), 8667; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph19148667 - 16 Jul 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2155

Abstract

The assessment of motor proficiency is essential across childhood to identify children’s strengths and difficulties and to provide adequate instruction and opportunities; assessment is a powerful tool to promote children’s development. This study aimed to investigate the hierarchal order of the Test of Gross Motor Development-Third Edition (TGMD-3) items regarding difficulty levels and the differential item functioning across gender and age group (3 to 5, 6 to 8, and 9 to 10 years old). Participants are 989 children (3 to 10.9 years; girls n = 491) who were assessed using TGMD-3. For locomotor skills, appropriate results reliability (alpha = 1.0), infit (M = 0.99; SD = 0.17), outfit (M = 1.18; SD = 0.64), and point-biserial correlations (rpb values from 0.14 to 0.58) were found; the trend was similar for ball skills: reliability (alpha = 1.0), infit (M = 0.99; SD = 0.13), outfit (M = 1.08; SD = 0.52); point-biserial correlations (rpb values from 0.06 to 0.59) were obtained. Two motor criteria: gallop, item-1, and one-hand forehand strike, item-4, were the most difficult items; in contrast, run, item-2, and two-hand catch, item-2, were the easiest items. Differential item functioning for age was observed in nine locomotor and ten ball skills items. These items were easier for older children compared to younger ones. The TGMD-3 has items with different difficulty levels capable of differential functioning across age groups. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Assessment of Growth and Development of Children and Adolescents Worldwide)

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10 pages, 2469 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Trajectories of Body Height, Body Weight, BMI, and Nutrition Status from 1979 to 1987: A Measurement-Based Analysis of 8740 Montenegrin Male Adolescents from the Municipality of Berane

by Dusko Bjelica, Jovan Gardasevic, Zoran Milosevic, Predrag R. Bozic and Bojan Masanovic

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(10), 5490; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph18105490 - 20 May 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2495

Abstract

This study aimed to consolidate the body height, body weight, BMI, and nutrition status data of the overall young male population from the Municipality of Berane in order to assess the trajectories of those variables from 1979 to 1987. The sample of respondents included 8740 adolescents who were divided into nine groups according to their age. The sample of variables included body height, body weight, body mass index, and nutrition status, which were presented based on a long-established BMI categorization (underweight, normal weight, pre-obese, and obese). The descriptive statistics are expressed as the mean and standard deviation for each variable; the analysis of nutrition status was calculated based on BMI, while LSD post hoc testing with ANOVA was employed to investigate differences between the means. The results indicate that a secular trend is visible regarding body height and body weight, while no trend is visible for the BMI and nutrition status. This study’s contribution is that it provides insight into more recently published data for the studied period and in this municipality, which can significantly aid in following the secular trend throughout Montenegro. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Assessment of Growth and Development of Children and Adolescents Worldwide)

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Review

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19 pages, 2269 KiB

Open AccessReview

The Follow-Up of Eating Disorders from Adolescence to Early Adulthood: A Systematic Review

by Caterina Filipponi, Chiara Visentini, Tommaso Filippini, Anna Cutino, Paola Ferri, Sergio Rovesti, Emanuela Latella and Rosaria Di Lorenzo

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(23), 16237; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph192316237 - 04 Dec 2022

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3957

Abstract

Eating disorders (EDs) are common among children and adolescents and are characterized by excessive concerns for physical appearance, distorted body image, and fear of gaining weight. The purpose of this review is to evaluate the follow-up of EDs from adolescence to adulthood, analyzing persistence, relapses, and associated comorbidities. We searched scientific articles in PubMed, PsycInfo, Scopus, and Embase through two research strings, one for quantitative outcomes (recovery/persistence, relapse, and remission) and one for the other outcomes (psychiatric and medical comorbidities, substance use, and social–relational complications). From a total of 8043 retrieved articles, we selected 503 papers after exclusion of duplicates and title/abstract screening. After a full-text evaluation, we included 16 studies eligible for this review. We performed a meta-analysis describing the quantitative results, and we created a narrative synthesis for the qualitative outcomes. Results: Our results confirm that EDs can persist in early adulthood in 40.7% of cases with a relapse percentage of 24.5%. Individuals with an ED more frequently present with an empathy deficit and comorbid anxiety and depressive disorders. EDs are chronic and complex disorders, more frequent in females. In most cases, EDs reduce the autonomy of individuals who present many difficulties in affirming their independence from parental family. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Assessment of Growth and Development of Children and Adolescents Worldwide)

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