Quantitative changes in the anthropological status of middle school aged pupils over a two-year period

Aim. The research was conducted with the primary aim of determining the antropometric characteristics as well as motor and functional abilities of three groups of examinees over a two-year period of organized physical activity engagement. The secondary aims were to examine each group's nutritional status and their connection to the results achieved in the functional ability evaluation. Material and methods. In the total sample which consisted of 147 pupils, one group was engaged in martial arts (karate, wrestling, taekwondo and kick-boxing), the second group in team sports played with a ball (football, handball and basketball), while the third group was physically active only on Physical Education classes. Ten variables were used for the needs of the research, while to process the data, the Student's t-test for dependable samples, the discriminant analysis and the correlation analysis were used. Results. For all the three measurements, the results show the superiority of examinees - athletes compared to non-athletes. Engaging in team sports played with a ball at the age of 11 to 13 has a more positive influence on the analysed variables of the anthropological status than for peers who are non-athletes, but the same was not shown for athletes engaging in martial arts (p