Development of the FitBack online platform : enhancing global child fitness assessment, health-related interpretation, and surveillance

Sorić, Maroje (author), Morrison, Shawnda A. (author), Ortega, Francisco B. (author), Carraro, Attilio (author), Csányi, Tamás (author), Leskošek, Bojan (author), Mäestu, Jarek (author), Radisavljević Janić, Snežana (author), Sardinha, Luís B. (author), Scheuer, Claude (author), Starc, Gregor (author), Tammelin, Tuija H. (author), Jurak, Gregor (author)

Objectives: Physical fitness is an important indicator of health in children. Accurately monitoring child and adolescent physical fitness is critical when designing effective public health interventions and strategies. This article communicates the creation process of the FitBack platform, a multi-lingual, free-for-use online health, education and information portal tool. The study’s objectives are to provide a detailed breakdown of the evidence-based health-related criteria that support its unique feedback reporting system. Methods: Four methodological phases were used to create the FitBack platform. First, a review of existing European fitness databases was conducted to identify common fitness tests and methodologies within a European framework. Second, investigators collated data to create European-level fitness norms, health-related criteria, and health-oriented educational resources dedicated to improving child fitness levels. Third, guidance on how to create one’s own fitness monitoring and surveillance system was created based on good practice examples. The FitBack platform was then piloted and launched based on data received from stakeholders who responded to ≥2 rounds of consultation dialogues. Results: The final version of the online platform is detailed herein, with special focus on describing its novel health-related, child-specific fitness criteria used to provide its diverse end-users individualised health feedback. Conclusions: The FitBack online platform is a first-step tool that anyone can use towards creating their own standardised, person-centred, multi-national fitness surveillance system for children, bridging policy gaps that exist between current European political recommendations and individual member states, encouraging harmonious cooperation between sectors. By providing the detailed age- and sex-specific health-related fitness cut-points underpinning FitBack’s health feedback, we expect this versatile digital health tool to be useful not only to researchers, but also practitioners and policy makers, as they work towards building better child fitness monitoring system infrastructures worldwide.

• Language: English
• Keywords: sport, public health policy, paediatrics, knowledge translation, physical literacy, education, fitness standards, personalised health feedback
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FŠ - Faculty of Sport
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: 9 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 14, iss. 1, art. 100967
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-166453
• UDC: 796.01:613
• ISSN on article: 2211-8845
• DOI: 10.1016/j.hlpt.2024.100967
• COBISS.SI-ID: 221843203
• Publication date in RUL: 13.01.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Health policy and technology
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 2211-8845
• COBISS.SI-ID: 221842691

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: šport, politika javnega zdravja, pediatrija, izobraževanje, prevod znanja, telesna pismenost, fitnes standardi, prilagojene povratne informacije o zdravju