¶ … Physical activity is an important part of childhood. It offers children a way to stay healthy and learn long-term good habits that they can take into adulthood. However, some children are not exercising or staying active as long as they should. Therefore, it is important to assess their fitness level to act accordingly. Children aged 6 through 12 for example, are just starting to grow and have not yet undergone significant hormonal changes. Therefore, fitness levels should be measured accordingly.
The first thing to measure is their stamina/endurance. Kids at this age need daily activity, roughly one hour od moderate and vigorous exercise. Although some days can be taken off, a good way to measure a child's fitness level is to see if they can handle one hour of vigorous exercise. A game of soccer or touch football would...
(Bushman)
Another thing to measure is length of time inactive. Children should not be inactive for more than two hours at a time. If a child is at home sitting on the sofa for four hours each day, this can spell trouble for their wellbeing. They need to stay active because it can provide them a sound basis as they age and mature.
Another way to measure fitness level is body fat and muscle. A higher body fat percentage does not necessarily mean the person is not fit, nor does a higher muscle percentage mean a person is more fit. However, these things do have the tendency to correlate.
. . . given BMI, greater physical activity was associated with lower average body fat percentage (for a BMI of 22.5 -- 24.99 kg/m2: 2.0 (95% CI 1.8 to 2.2), percentage points lower body fat in men and 1.8 (95% CI 1.6 to 2.0) percentage points lower body fat in
women, comparing ≥100 excess MET-hours per week with
