A Preliminary Study of Physical Fitness in 8- to 10-Year-Old Primary School Children From North East England in Comparison With National and International Data.

Purpose: Despite recent updates to international normative values for physical fitness in young people, contemporary data sets from England are sparse with no published data available from the North East. We compared physical fitness in children from one primary school in North East England to International and European reference data, and other English regions. Methods: Eighty participants (mean age [SD]: 9.1 [0.6] y) completed a testing battery of 20-m shuttle run test, handgrip strength, standing broad jump, and sit-and-reach. Scores for each component were assessed against International or European age- and sex-specific centiles, then grouped into quintiles. Differences between our sample and European and English data sets were explored using z scores and t tests. Results: For all components, ≥58% of participants were classified as having "moderate" or lower levels. Twenty-meter shuttle run test performance was not substantially different compared with other English data sets. For handgrip and sit-and-reach, our sample scored significantly worse than South East children. Standing broad jump distance in girls, and handgrip in boys and girls, was significantly lower than North West equivalents. Conclusion: Physical fitness levels in primary school children from North East England are suboptimal, highlighting a need for large-scale monitoring studies to build on our preliminary findings.

Implementation of national screening guidelines for gestational diabetes: A national survey of maternity units in England.

AIMS: To describe national implementation of gestational diabetes (GDM) risk-factor based screening guidelines, and barriers to implementation relating to maternal body mass index (BMI). METHODS: National online survey of NHS Trusts offering maternity services in England. A questionnaire was emailed to clinical staff involved in care of pregnant women assessing compliance with NICE guidelines for risk-factor based screening, BMI thresholds for offering OGTT and barriers to offering OGTT to women with BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2. RESULTS: Health professionals from 113 (84%) of NHS Trusts in England responded to the survey. Most Trusts (81%) offered OGTT at 26-28 weeks gestation to women with selected risk factors for GDM. However, almost 40% of Trusts were not fully compliant with NICE screening criteria for all risk factors, mainly due to not offering OGTT to women with previous GDM (25% of Trusts), BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2 or ethnic minority groups (22% of Trusts). The main barriers to compliance with the BMI threshold were lack of capacity, resource and funding given the high prevalence of maternal obesity. Forty one percent of Trusts used diagnostic thresholds for GDM which differed from NICE recommendations. CONCLUSIONS: Additional resources are required for NHS Trusts to fully implement and sustain risk-factor screening, especially for women with previous GDM, BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2 and ethnic minority groups.