Health Promotion in Children and Adolescents through Sport and Physical Activities

Abstract

This Special Issue entitled ”Health Promotion in Children and Adolescents through Sport and Physical Activities” was developed after I received an interesting phone call from Giuseppe Musumeci, a friend and colleague who, in my opinion, is brilliantly driving JFMK to success. Giuseppe motivated me to manage a Special Issue ( SI), and after a short interaction with him and some personal study, I decided to address the topic of this SI to the area mentioned above. Although the title of this SI may seem a bit broad, since the beginning, my intention has been clear: to try to collect more information about the impact that human movement has on the physical and psychological conditions of subjects during all stages of development, also known as the pediatric age. I admit I was surprised when submissions started rolling in. There were many exciting works (unfortunately, we had to reject a few of them for a variety of reasons), and in the end we collected 13 contributions in a short period. In brief, I will present here the core message that this SI book aims to share with the readers. The first part of the book contains three interesting editorials that fit perfectly with the SI’s purposes. Sarah West et al. point out the importance of “research that longitudinally assesses how lifelong physical activity () contributes to life expectancy and mortality”, while Ambra Gentile presents an interesting project supported by the European Commission addressing sports and human movement as valid methods of preventing violence and social exclusion. The third editorial by Marianna Alesi et al. also reports on a European initiative concerning cognitive and motivational monitoring during enriched sports activities. Interestingly, these three articles have many common points, and the central role of human movement is the driving factor. Among the subsequent contributions, readers will find an interesting review by Riggs Klika et al., in which the terms cancer, pediatric age, and exercise have been properly investigated and presented. Laura Kabiri et al. presents data that support the importance of being active at a young age, while Ryan D. Burn and You Fu investigated the interrelationships among motor competence and health-related variables during the pediatric age. The matter of motor competence is addressed by Charlotte JH Hall et al., who suggest that good motor competence is an important correlate of children meeting physical activity guidelines for health. In an original investigation, Yolanda Demetriu et al. provide first insights into how a sports-oriented school can promote students’ physical literacy and optimal cognitive performance. Cain CT Clark et al. investigated motor skills in children and highlighted the importance of gender differences, while the work of Michael PR Sheldrick et al. reports that sufficient MVPA and excessive screen time were associated with healthy and unhealthy factors, respectively, with relationships sometimes differing by sex. Ewan Thomas and Antonio Palma report that it is possible to consider age-related performance measures to develop exercise interventions that follow the growth characteristics of schoolchildren, while Francisco Tavares et al., in their original investigation, encourage the development of power capacities in the late youth phase when preparing athletes for the senior competition level. Now, at the end of this journey through all the scientific contributions that I had the honor of managing, I want to say thank you to all the lovely people at the MDPI Editorial Office. I felt supported and encouraged to be creative and productive, and I will definitely request a second edition of this successful and interesting Special Issue.