Age, ethnic and gender differences in physical fitness of middle-school children in east Texas.

This research studied the health-related physical fitness status of boys and girls in Grades 5 and 6 in a rural school district in East Texas in an examination of possible age, ethnic, and gender differences. A three-way multivariate analysis of variance was conducted with gender, ethnicity, and age as the independent variables and nine physical measurements as the dependent variables. Height was the most important discriminating physical measurement, with girls significantly taller than boys at ages 10 and 11 and with boys significantly taller than girls at age 13. Canonical discriminant function separated black children from both Caucasian and Hispanic children in height, weight, mile run, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure.