Healthy plantar pressure distribution beneath the feet plays a crucial role in children’s development from the very beginning, with any deviations potentially leading to various pathologic conditions. This review aims to examine recent applications of pedobarographic analysis in pediatrics applications, providing a clearer picture of current research practices and the topics being addressed. The authors conducted a comprehensive search across several scientific databases, including PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar, ultimately selecting 17 studies after applying specific criteria for inclusion. The findings demonstrate that pedobarographic analysis can effectively differentiate between age and sex differences in plantar pressure and detect the influence of various risk factors in healthy children. It was found that a child’s foot health is closely linked to their physical activity level, with body fat percentage playing a significant role in pressure distribution. Furthermore, external factors like school bags and internal factors such as obesity were identified as major contributors to abnormal plantar pressure, and pedobarography proved successful in detecting these effects. The analysis also showed that pedobarography is an effective tool for assessing foot health, tracking changes, and monitoring longterm recovery or trends in children. However, the review also highlights a limitation in the scarcity of research, particularly in the areas of gait and plantar pressure in children. Only a few studies have focused on young healthy athletes, suggesting that future research could delve deeper into this population.

Background/Objectives: Early school age is a critical period for monitoring nutritional status and physical fitness to promote health and prevent obesity. This study aimed to determine nutritional status and muscular endurance in children aged 7–10 years and to examine differences by age and sex. Additionally, associations between anthropometric characteristics and muscular endurance were assessed, emphasizing comparisons between raw anthropometric measures and derived indices (BMI, WHR, WHtR). Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 375 healthy children (184 boys, 191 girls) aged 7–10 years from Primorje, Gorski Kotar County, Croatia. Anthropometric measures included height, weight, waist circumference, and hip circumference, and muscular endurance was assessed via pull-up hold, 30-second sit-up, plank-to-failure, and squat-to-failure tests. Age and sex differences were analysed using MANOVA/ANOVA, and associations between anthropometric measures and endurance outcomes were examined using ANCOVA. Results: Age was the strongest predictor of performance across all endurance tests (p< .001), explaining 5.4–12.7% of variance, with the largest effect in the pull-up hold test. Sex differences were significant only at age 7, with boys performing better in sit-up, pull-up hold, and plank tests (p≤.039). Raw anthropometric measures were weak predictors after adjusting for age, whereas derived indices were more informative. WHtR was negatively associated with performance in the pull-up hold test at age 9 (p=.031) and the 30-second sit-up test at age 10 (p=.040). Conclusions: Age is a key determinant of muscular endurance, whereas a higher WHtR is associated with poorer performance in body-weight endurance tasks.

Analysis of children's morphological characteristics is crucial for monitoring their growth, maintaining general health and identifying problems such as overweight or obesity. The aim of this study was to determine the differentiation of obesity risk indicators by gender and chronological age in children of early school age. The study involved 357 children (8.63±1.15 years) of whom there were 180 boys (8.79±1.14 years) and 177 girls (8.46±1.13 years) from three primary schools in Rijeka. A set of variables in which the research analysis was carried out, three indicators of the subjects' body structure were calculated: body mass index (BMI), subcutaneous fat (FAT)and waist-hip ratio index (WHR). The results indicate that indicators of risky health conditions such as body mass index, subcutaneous fat and WHR index are increasingly stable and serious with the increase in the chronological age of children. The MANOVA for the total sample indicated a significant effect of class on the combined dependent variables (BMI, FAT, WHR, WHtR) with Wilks' Lambda=0.628; F(12, 894.55)=11.61; p<0.001. A significant difference between girls and boys was also found. Girls have lower BMI values (t(345)=3.12; p=.002), FAT (t(279)=2.41; p=.017), WHR (t(353)=3.58; p=.000) as well as WHtR values (t(344)=-3.07; p=.002) compared to boys. In conclusion, the study demonstrates that as children’s chronological age increases, obesity risk indicators such as BMI, subcutaneous fat, and WHR become more pronounced, with boys exhibiting higher values in all indicators compared to girls.