Physical Activity as a Chance for Roma Children Living In Unfavorable Conditions

Until now no larger child sample of exclusively Roma ethnicity has been investigated concerning their basic somatic and motor performance attributes. The aim of the present comparison of Roma and non-Roma prepubertal and pubertal boys was to analyse if there were differences in some anthropometric measures and running performance to see if Roma children fall behind their non-Roma peers in growth and development, and if so, to what extent. Kinanthropometric data collection was carried out in 184 volunteer Roma boys aged 6.51 and 14.50 years. For a control group, exactly the same number of non-Roma subjects was selected randomly from each age group of the same region - Kanjiza and Novi Knezevac.