Life style and sports practice in peripubertal boys and girls on bone mineral density and body composition – preleminary study

Introduction: There are several studies published in the last twenty years that try to stablish the relationship between skeleton reactions to different loads particular in sports youth. Aim: The aim of this research is to study the impact of regular physical activity (basketball, soccer and swimming) on peripuberal subjects by bone mineral density (BMD) and body composition. Methods: This is sectional, descriptive and correlational study involving swimmers (n=17 females and 10 males), soccer players (n=13 females and 19 males), basketball players (n=14 females and 15 males) and a control group (n=20 females and 12 males) in a total of 120 subjects. A questionnaire on physical activity and food intake was applied and stature, body mass and abdominal girth. BMD was assessed using quantitative ultrasound of the calcaneus. Kruskal-Wallis test was used to study the effect of sports in the study variables. Results & discussion: BMD for the control group is lower than for all other groups for both genders, (Swimmers (f: 0.521; m: 0.533), Soccer (f: 0.634; m: 0.639), Basketball (f: 0.688; m: 0.657), Control Group (f: 0.462; m: 0.472). Basketball players have the higher values for BMD for both genders followed by soccer players and swimmers. The Kruskal-Wallis test show there is effect of sports above the BMD [X2 (3)=82.796; p<0.001]. Conclusions: Regular physical activity on peripubertal subjects promotes increase on BMD, the confrontation sports are the ones that have higher values on the skeleton is for both sexes.