Assessment of physical fitness in children and adolescents

Existing evidence suggests that physical fitness is an excellent indicator of the health of children and adolescents and is a predictor of health in later life. Furthermore, measuring, assessing and monitoring of physical fitness should be considered a public health priority. Currently in the world there are more than fifteen battery (group) tests for the assessment of physical fitness in children and adolescents. Unlike most European countries which are already applying the EUROFIT battery of tests in schools, or the United States where the FITNESSGRAM battery test is being applied, Serbia lacks a clearly specified and well defined strategy for testing physical fitness in children and adolescents. The obvious problem of testing physical fitness in children and adolescents is the focus of this review. The basic idea is to, by showing the most common battery of tests and the circumstances in which they are incurred and being replaced, clarify the concept and importance of testing, select the components that are necessary to test and propose a valid, reliable and objective group of tests for fitness in children and adolescents. The analysis of the most common groups of tests and new scientific evidence has highlighted the importance of evaluation of the components of health-related fitness. ALPHA-FIT battery tests are proposed in physical education, which were incurred as part of the ALPHA project of the European Union (Assessing Levels of Physical Activity and Fitness).