A WEB-BASED SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM ON ADOLESCENTS’ LIFESTYLES AND OBESITY PREVENTION: ASSO-FTB PRELIMINARY FINDINGS. THE ASSO PROJECT.

Abstract

The ASSO Project (Adolescents and Surveillance System for Obesity prevention), financed by the Italian Ministry of Health, aims to develop a surveillance system structured on adolescents lifestyles. It is a prospective study with online data collection, simultaneous descriptive data analysis and real time report. The ASSO-Toolkit is made of questionnaires, forms and a fitness test battery. The aims of this study is to evaluate the predictive validity, the criterion validity and the reliability of ASSO-FTB, in other words to assess how well the system operates to meet its objectives. The ASSO-FTB consists of 20mSRT (Shuttle Run Test) to estimate cardiorespiratory fitness, the handgrip strength test and the standing broad jump to assess musculoskeletal fitness, the 4x10mSRT to assess motor fitness and last but not least the sit up test to estimate muscle endurance. The project is currently spreading in southern Italy, both in urban and rural territories. A comparison has been made between two schools to evaluate if demographic aspects affect adolescents fitness and ensure that the project itself is reliable and reproducible. Forty male adolescents (17,32 ± 1,0 yrs; 175,3 ± 6,0 cm; 72,4 ± 14,7 kg; waist circ. 86,2 ± 12,4 cm) attending an urban secondary school and forty-nine adolescents ( 15,86 ± 1,4 yrs; 169,8 ± 8,9 cm; 64,3 ± 15) attending a rural secondary school voluntarily participated to the study . In a school setting, the standardized procedures were administered by the ASSO-FTB specialist in collaboration with the (PE) teacher. All data collected were updated through the already existing website (www.assoproject.info) and codified by the dedicated ASSO-FTB server. Participants were significantly higher in BMI compared to data published by Espana-Romeo et al in 2010. As expected, the maximal isometric strength showed no differences between urban (35,07±7,3 kg) and rural (33,7±10,8 kg) school respectively. Data that remains in line with what published by Espana-Romeo et al in 2010. The standing broad jump (178,07 ± 26,9 cm) has evinced less distance than Espana-Romeo study (183,4 ± 32,75), p = 0,37. On the whole findings show that there is a correlation between between handgrip and the 4x10 meter shuttle run test (r=-0.7) and between handgrip and standing broad jump (r = 0.7) underlining that this last test is better indicative of the upper and lower body muscular strength. The only concern comes from the VO2 max results, showing a mean value of 24 ml/kg/min. It is still to determine if the 20m shuttle run test underestimates this parameter or if adolescents have at this stage of development a reduced cardiorespiratory fitness. The trial showed that the FTB-system is reliable and reproducible. At this stage ASSO-FTB seems to be able to meet scientific standards. More studies are necessary for the ASSO-toolkit validation. Preliminary results are very encouraging.