Research

Energy balance

Adolescents with overweight or obesity exhibit significantly lower physical fitness scores across cardiorespiratory and agility tests compared to normal-weight peers, demonstrating a strong inverse association between excess body weight and fitness.

If you are an overweight adolescent, your current fitness levels are likely lower than your normal-weight peers, particularly in endurance and agility tasks. This is not a permanent state but a reflection of current energy balance and activity levels. To improve, focus on increasing physical activity in a way that respects your current physical limits and reduces the fear of judgment, as low fitness can be a barrier to participation.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
This cross-sectional study shows a strong inverse relationship between fitness and excess body weight in adolescents.
Pascal Bovet et al. · International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity · 2007

Why this rating

Large sample size (n=4599), standardized testing, and clear statistical significance, though limited by cross-sectional design preventing causal inference.

Source

Strong inverse association between physical fitness and overweight in adolescents: a large school-based survey

Pascal Bovet et al. · International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity · 2007

DOI 10.1186/1479-5868-4-24

cross_sectional · n=4343Cited 192×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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