Mukherjee, Swarup

Background: Adolescents require at least 60 minutes of daily moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity (PA) for optimum health benefits. Reduced active and increased sedentary time can adversely affect health independently. This study investigated the sedentary behavior and physical activity patterns of Singaporean adolescents.
Methods: 233 adolescents aged 13-15 years participated in the study. Accelerometery was used to assess the daily PA patterns for three weekdays and two weekend days consecutively. Height, weight, BMI, waist circumference and waist-hip ratio were determined as surrogate measures of health.
Results: None of the participants achieved the recommended 60 minutes of daily MVPA on all five days. Significantly more time was spent engaging in sedentary activity compared to MVPA on both weekdays and weekends. MVPA and sedentary time were positively associated on weekdays after controlling for gender (p < .001). Weekday MVPA was positively associated with waist circumference (p < .001) and waist-hip ratio (p < .001).
Conclusion: Singaporean adolescents fall substantially short of meeting the daily PA recommendations. Separate strategies to promote PA may be necessary for adolescents of differing weight status and gender. Pragmatic rather than idealistic targets to promote PA need to be set based on population-specific baseline data.

Purpose: Information and communication technologies can enable educators in the development of innovative and contextually relevant approaches for the provision of enhanced learning experiences. This study examined preservice physical education teachers’ perceptions of a flipped learning basketball course in a physical education teacher education program.

Method: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight preservice physical education teachers (three females; M age = 23.5 years) who had completed the course. Interview data were coded using inductive and deductive thematic analysis.

Results: Six main themes were identified reflecting benefits, challenges, and recommendations of flipped learning: (a) facilitate student-centered learning, (b) promote self-directed learning, (c) encourage real-world application, (d) insufficient avenues to assess understanding, (e) preclass preparation too time consuming, and (f) modification of materials and structure.

Discussion/Conclusion: Flipped learning can potentially enhance preservice physical education teachers’ motivation for learning and increase active learning time in the sport-based courses in physical education teacher education. The identified challenges and recommendations are valuable for physical education teacher education educators to effectively prepare and execute flipped learning-based courses.

Aim Population-specific waist circumference (WC) percentiles are crucial for screening children at higher obesity-related metabolic risk. This study aimed to develop age- and gender-specific WC percentile curves for Singaporean children and adolescents. Methods 3029 participants (boys, 1506; girls, 1523) from different population strata of Singapore were recruited. Stature, weight and WC were measured and BMI calculated. Smoothed WC percentile curves and cut-offs for the 3rd, 5th, 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 85th, 90th, 95th, 97th were constructed using the Cole's LMS method. Results WC and BMI increased with age in both sexes and boys had higher WC than girls at every age. Comparison of 50th and 90th percentiles with other populations showed distinct difference in WC curve patterns and values of Singaporean children. Conclusions We present the first working WC percentile curves and age- and gender-specific cut-offs of Singaporean children and adolescents. These cut-offs and curves can serve as valuable reference for screening and identify children at a higher metabolic risk, for international comparisons and to better understand secular trends in paediatric obesity.

The overall activity pattern of soccer is that of intermittent high-intensity (Int-HINT) type and elite players have a greater repeated high-intensity running capability. Since soccer involves rapidly changing work intensities in an unpredictable manner, tests simulating overall activity pattern in a cyclical sequence have limited practical usefulness in testing of soccer fitness. The primary aim of this study was to develop a laboratory-based protocol to specifically assess the Int-HINT running capability in soccer players. University team games athletes (n=8, Mean ± SD; age 22.30 ± 1.65 years, stature 1.73 ± 0.04 m, body mass 69.36 ± 6.04 kg) participated in the reliability study and male youth professional soccer players (n=20, Mean ± SD age, 17.5 ± 0.3 yrs; stature, 1.73 ± 0.04 m; body mass, 67.2 ± 7.5 kg) participated in the validity study. The players performed on the NIE Intermittent High-intensity (NIE Int-HINT) Running Test during the preseason, early in-season and end mid-season phases of the soccer season. Performance was measured as total distance covered on the treadmill. The participants also performed the YoYo Intermittent Recovery Test Level 2 (YoYo IRT L2) during each phase of the competition season. The NIE Int-HINT test was found to be of high reliability (ICC, 0.98; CV, 2.1%; ratio limits of agreement (rLOA) 0.99 ×/÷ 1.03). A positive and significant correlation (p< 0.05) was found between the performance in the NIE Int-HINT test and the YoYo IRT L2 performance (r = 0.68-0.77) during different phases of the soccer season. The NIE Int-HINT test provided a reliable measure of intermittent high-intensity running capability and a valid and sensitive method of estimating soccer-specific fitness in youth professional soccer players. Further studies are needed to evaluate the applicability of this test in adult elite soccer players and other intermittent team game athletes.

The increasing discussions regarding the research-to-practice gap in sport injury prevention have led to a growing focus on the significance of context in injury prevention programs. A context-driven injury prevention program is advantageous to address and enhance injury prevention efforts in specific populations. Considering the prevalent concern for overuse injuries among overhead youth athletes, and the developmental and contextual factors unique to this population, this review introduces the OverHead Youth Athlete (OH-YA) overuse injury prevention process. Tailored to address the challenges of working with overhead youth athletes, the context-specific four-step framework includes the following: (1) development of a context-specific instrument with strong sample representation, (2) determination of the context-specific injury burden magnitude and associated factors, (3) development of a context-specific intervention with end-users, and (4) evaluation of the context-specific intervention. This framework would likely help maximize the use of typically limited resources in youth sports. Using shoulder overuse injuries among overhead youth athletes as a case study, the OH-YA overuse injury prevention process provides an enhanced approach to context-driven overuse injury prevention while illustrating the importance and integration of context to minimize the “research-to-practice” gap.

The anthropometric and blood parameters of 229 Singaporean adolescent youths, aged 13–15 recruited from seven secondary schools, were examined. Out of these youths, 71.5% were of healthy weight, 14.7% were underweight, 8.9% were overweight and 4.9% were obese, based on the BMI-for-age for adolescents set by the Ministry of Education. Health measurements like waist circumference, resting blood pressure and blood parameters—triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein, blood glucose derived from a fasted state, and insulin resistance—were obtained in accordance to standard international protocols. Clustered metabolic risk was used to quantify participants who were at significant risk of metabolic syndrome. Twenty-seven or 11.8% were identified as at-risk of metabolic syndrome CMR was significantly associated with body mass, waist circumference, resting systolic and diastolic blood pressure, fasted blood triglyceride, and fasted blood glucose. CMR was also moderately associated with IR. Waist circumference, percentage of body fat, and blood triglycerides and resting blood pressure were significantly correlated with IR. From the study, it was found that poor metabolic health is a concern among adolescent youths in Singapore, not only in those who were overweight or obese, but also in those who are of normal weight and underweight.

Several targeted upper extremity injury prevention programs have been developed to mitigate the risk of upper extremity overuse injuries among youth athletes in overhead sports; however, their effectiveness on performance outcome measures has not been investigated. This systematic review evaluated the effectiveness of existing upper extremity injury prevention programs that focused on modifying intrinsic risk factors, and performance outcome measures in overhead youth athletes. The secondary aim was to identify the training components of these programs. PubMed, Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro), SPORTDiscus (via EBSCOhost), and Web of Science were searched from January 2000 to November 2020 for studies that implemented training programs or exercises for upper extremity injury prevention among youth athletes in overhead throwing or striking sports. An updated search was conducted from December 2020 to October 2022. A program was deemed effective for a performance outcome measure if significant improvements were observed in the intervention group as compared to the control group. Of the 1 394 studies identified, five studies met the inclusion criteria. The effectiveness of the injury prevention programs on the identified performance outcome measures of strength, mobility, and sport-specific measures were 30.4%, 28.6%, and 22.2%, respectively. The training components targeted were strength, mobility, and plyometrics. Strength was the most common training component and was also the most widely investigated performance outcome measure. Overall, current upper extremity injury prevention programs seem effective at improving performance outcome measures of strength, mobility, and sport-specific outcomes with training components of strength, mobility and plyometrics. Standardized protocols are required for the measurement and reporting of performance outcomes measures, and the reporting of training components.

This study aimed to examine prospective associations of mobile touch screen device (i.e. smartphone, tablet) use and patterns of use with musculoskeletal symptoms and visual health among adolescents. A representative sample of 1691 adolescents in Singapore (51% girls; 10–19 years) completed an online questionnaire at baseline and one-year follow-up. After adjusting for potential confounders, prospective associations were found between baseline smartphone use and follow-up neck/shoulder (OR = 1.61(95%CI = 1.06–2.44)) and low back (OR = 1.86(1.10–3.14)) symptoms; tablet use was also associated with neck/shoulder, low back and arms symptoms (OR = 1.33(1.04–1.71)to1.52(1.18–1.95)). No associations were observed between the duration of smartphone/tablet use and symptoms. Baseline patterns of use (bout length, certain types of activities, multitasking) were associated with follow-up musculoskeletal symptoms. Smartphone/tablet use was not related to visual outcomes (visual symptoms, wearing glasses/contact lenses, myopia) at follow-up. These findings suggest that patterns of smartphone/tablet use (though not the duration of use) can pose a prospective risk for musculoskeletal symptoms.