METABOLIC IMPROVEMENT AFTER EXERCISE TRAINING IN CHILDREN WITH OBESITY: POSSIBLE ROLE OF THE SIX-MINUTE WALKING TEST

Objective: To assess in a group of children with obesity whether a simple test such as Six-Minute Walking Test (6MWT) may be helpful in evaluating the effectiveness of an online supervised training program in modulating lipid and glucose metabolism, given that exercise-based interventions can be considered effective when they are able to modulate the pathogenetic processes underlying the obesity complications. Study design: 35 Caucasian children with obesity (aged 8-13) were assessed before (T0) and after (T1) a 12-week online supervised exercise training protocol. Every participant underwent the following evaluations: cardiovascular fitness (by means of 6MWT), metabolic biochemical profile, lifestyle (with ad hoc questionnaires focusing on physical activity, nutrition, sedentariness, sleep hours and quality, health perception), Cardiac Autonomic Regulation (CAR). Spearman correlations between the variations in the studied outcomes were explored. Results: After intervention, the distance covered during 6MWT significantly increased (p <0.001), and nutrition quality improved slightly but significantly (p=0.03). The improvement in the 6MWT performance was shown to significantly correlate with the reduction of insulin levels (r=-0.455; p=0.02), HOMA-IR Index (r=-0.452; p=0.02), total cholesterol values (r=-0.549; p=0.004) and Atherogenic Index of Plasma (AIP) (r=0.422; p=0.04). Besides, there was a significant correlation between the improvement in 6MWT and health perception (r=0.578; p=0.002). Conclusion: We observed that the improvement in the 6MWT performance correlates with metabolic profile betterment after exercise training in children with obesity, thus suggesting that this relatively simple test is capable of unveiling relevant changes in pathogenetic processes underlying obesity.