The present study aimed to examine the association between nutritional status and components of health-related physical fitness in elementary school students. This study was conducted with 417 students from both genders, aged 10 to 13 years. The classification of nutritional status was done using BMI percentile. Health-related physical fitness was estimated using FITNESSGRAM. Analysis of variance with Tukey as post-hoc was conducted to compare nutritional status and physical fitness components. Overweight boys and girls showed lower cardiorespiratory fitness and higher fat mass than normal and underweight children (P<0.05). In addition, in boys, overweight was negatively associated with all components of health-related physical fitness (p<0.05), except with flexibility. Overweight negatively affects the components of health-related physical fitness in children; however, the effects are more pronounced among boys.
Obesity; Cardiorespiratory fitness; Students
