Developing and sustaining health-enhancing behaviors and outcomes in youth inherently involves the integration of many behavioral, psychological, social and environmental factors. Examining how these factors evolve across childhood and adolescence and how they may synergistically interact to promote either positive or negative trajectories of physical and psychological development has largely been unexplored. In 2008, Stodden et al. [1Stodden, e al. A developmental perspective on the role of motor skill competence in physical activity: An emergent relationship Quest 2008 ;  6 : 2

Cliccare qui per andare alla sezione Riferimenti] suggested that previous research had failed to consider the role that motor competence (MC) plays in the initiation, maintenance, or decline of physical activity (PA), health-related physical fitness (HRPF) and how these factors may synergistically impact to weight status in youth. Using a unique developmental approach, a conceptual model was proposed that addresses the potential role that MC may have on promoting either positive or negative trajectories of PA, HRPF, perceived competence and weight status.

Prior to 2008, limited research had examined associations between MC and the aforementioned health-related variables. However, emerging cross-sectional, longitudinal and experimental data in children, adolescents and young adults indicate there is strong evidence for positive associations between MC and PA, cardiorespiratory fitness and musculoskeletal fitness. Data also confirm there is an inverse association between MC and body weight status. Further exploration of data from key studies in this area demonstrate the emergence of positive or negative trajectories of PA, HRF, perceived competence and weight status that align with the development of MC across childhood and into adolescence.

As we now have sufficient evidence linking MC to various health-related constructs in youth, promoting the development of MC in interventions, specifically in early childhood, may be a catalyst that functions to promote positive trajectories of important health-related constructs across childhood, adolescence and possibly across the lifespan. Additional experimental evidence is needed to support the hypotheses of the Stodden et al. conceptual model.