Influence of obesity on proprioception of knee and ankle joints in obese prepubertal children

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of obesity on proprioception of knee and ankle joints in obese prepubertal children. Forty-two prepubertal children of both sexes ranging in age from 8 to 12 years participated in this study. Among these children, there were 21 obese children, with BMI 30–35 kg/m2, and 21 normal-weight child, with BMI 18–25 kg/m2. The active angle repositioning test was used to assess the proprioception of the knee joint at 45° flexion and the ankle joint at 30° planter flexion using the Biodex System 3 pro isokinetic dynamometer. The statistical analysis showed that there was a significant increase in the repositioning error of the knee joint in obese children compared with normal-weight children as the mean values of repositioning errors were 6.35±1.2 for obese children and 3.91±0.98 for normal-weight children (P=0.0001), whereas there was no significant difference in proprioception of the ankle joint as the mean values of repositioning errors were 4.69±0.79 for obese children and 4.3±1.02 for normal-weight children (P=0.13). Obese prepubertal children showed a decline in proprioception of the knee joint, which might be an important contributing factor toward the decreased postural control capacity in obese children as reported in the previously published works, because proprioceptive function is one of the most important components that contributes toward postural stability.