Association between Compliance with the 24-Hour Movement Guidelines and Fundamental Movement Skills in Preschoolers: A Network Perspective

The present study aimed to analyze the compliance with the 24-h movement guidelines and its association with fundamental motor skills (FMS) in early childhood, considering sex and Body Mass Index (BMI) in a network perspective. Two hundred and twelve preschoolers (109 boys, 4.45 +/- 0.78 years old) provided physical activity (PA), sleep duration, screen time, fundamental motor skills (FMS) and BMI data. Relationships between compliance with movement behaviors guidelines, FMS, sex and BMI were calculated using a network analysis. Only two percent of the entire sample complied with the overall 24-h movement behaviors recommendations; while the emerged network in the present study emphasized ball skills as the most critical centrality variable, according to age, reinforcing the importance of ball skills for the engagement and maintenance of PA in children. The present study presents a novel statistical and theoretical perspective that permits hitherto unseen insight into the associations between movement behavior, FMS and their correlates, that appropriately consider the inherent, multifaceted, complexity of these relationships.