ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Pediatric Obesity
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances in Research and Prevention of Overweight and Obesity in YouthView all 14 articles
Reliability of the PREFIT fitness-test battery in Chilean Preschoolers
Provisionally accepted
Bárbara Leyton1*
Johana Soto-Sánchez2
Juliana Kain3
Paz Fernández4Silvia Castro5María José Arias3
Francisco Ortega6,7- 1Universidad de Chile Instituto de Nutricion y Tecnologia de los Alimentos, Macul, Chile
- 2Universidad Mayor, Santiago, Chile
- 3University of Chile, Santiago, Chile
- 4Universidad Bernardo O'Higgins, Santiago, Chile
- 5Universidad de Las Americas, Santiago, Chile
- 6Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain
- 7Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, Finland, Finland
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Introduction: This study explores the test-retest reliability of the FITness in PREschoolers (PREFIT) battery: cardiorespiratory fitness (20 m Shuttle run test), upper-body muscle strength Handgrip strength), lower-body explosive strength (Standing long jump), speed (4×10 m Shuttle run), and static balance One-leg stance, in Chilean preschoolers considering weight status, sex, and age. Methods: The study included 171 Chilean preschoolers (5.4±0.7 years). The PREFIT battery was applied test-retest within 7 to 10 days between evaluations, and weight status was determined with a BMI z-score (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04269135). Statistical analysis included differences between retest-test, Lin's agreement, Cohen's effect size d, standard error, intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), and Bland-Altman plots. Analyses were performed with STATA. Results: Across 171 preschoolers (5.4±0.7 y), test-retest reliability was excellent to moderate for Handgrip strength (ICC=0.8502; IC95%: 0.81–0.90), 4×10m Shuttle run test (ICC=0.7696, IC95%: 0.71–0.84), PREFIT 20 m SRT (ICC=0.6656; IC95%: 0.58–0.74), but poor to one leg stance (ICC = 0.46; IC95%: 0.36–0.63). SEM and MDC95 indicated that changes of 0.85 kg, MDC=9502.35 kg (handgrip strength), ≥0.89 s (4×10 m shuttle run test), ≥5.33 laps (20 m shuttle run test), and ≥12.43 cm (Standing long jump) exceed measurement error. Reliability was similar across sex, age, and weight-status groups. Bland–Altman analyses showed proportional bias/heteroscedasticity for the 20 m shuttle run test and one-leg stance. At the same time, the remaining tests demonstrated consistent measurement error throughout the performance spectrum. Conclusion: The PREFIT battery is appropriate for field application among Chilean preschool children, with the exception of the one-leg stance test, which demonstrated inadequate reliability and proportional bias. Reporting MDC95 enables the interpretation of significant change within educational and intervention contexts.
Keywords: cardiorespiratory fitness, Childhood Obesity, Children, fitness, Girls-boys, muscular fitness, Physical Fitness, preschool
Received: 26 Jun 2025; Accepted: 11 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Leyton, Soto-Sánchez, Kain, Fernández, Castro, Arias and Ortega. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Bárbara Leyton
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