REGULAR ARTICLE Multidisciplinary residential treatment can improve perceptual-motor function in obese children Ilse Gentier (ilse.gentier@gmail.com) 1,2 , Eva D’Hondt 1,3 , Mireille Augustijn 1 , Ann Tanghe 4 , Ilse De Bourdeaudhuij 1 , Benedicte Deforche 1,3 , Matthieu Lenoir 1 1.Department of Movement and Sports Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium 2.Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO), Brussels, Belgium 3.Faculty of Physical Education and Physiotherapy, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussel, Belgium 4.Zeepreventorium VZW, De Haan, Belgium Keywords Body mass index, Childhood, Motor competence, Perceptual-motor function, Weight loss Correspondence I Gentier, Department of Movement and Sports Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ghent University, Watersportlaan 2, B-9000 Gent, Belgium. Tel: +32 50 69 11 73 | Email: ilse.gentier@gmail.com Received 27 May 2014; revised 9 July 2014; accepted 12 December 2014. DOI:10.1111/apa.12899 ABSTRACT Aim: This study evaluated the effects of a 10-month multidisciplinary residential treatment programme on the perceptual-motor function of obese children and compared them to children with a healthy weight. Methods: We studied 26 obese Belgian children (10 girls and 16 boys) with a mean age of 10.1 years (1.4 years), who followed a residential treatment programme consisting of moderate dietary restriction, psychological support and physical activity. The results were compared with 26 healthy weight children matched for age and gender. The anthropometrics and performance of both groups were assessed on two occasions, 10 months apart, based on simple and choice reaction time tasks and a tracking task using a stylus and tablet. Time by body mass index group interactions were investigated using repeated measure ANCOVAs, with age included as a covariate. Results: No significant interaction effect occurred in either task. In contrast, the obese participants showed a significant improvement in tracking performance over time during the stylus and tablet tests, demonstrating mean deviation from the ideal curve. No difference in performance between baseline and follow-up was observed in the healthy weight controls. Conclusion: Taking part in a multidisciplinary residential treatment programme improved the perceptual-motor function of obese children. INTRODUCTION Recent studies indicate that childhood obesity hinders gross motor competence (1–9). The heavier the child is, the greater the inertial characteristics of the body segments and the load on the musculoskeletal system. Obese children also perform worse than their healthy weight peers when it comes to fine motor tasks that are hardly affected by their excess mass. For example, being obese has been shown to have a negative impact on their fine motor competence in different field-based tests, such as a peg placing (10), the fine motor tasks from the Bruininks–Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (second edition) (4) and the manual dexterity cluster of the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (2). However, only a trend towards statistical significance was found in the latter. To explore these differences further, the lead author of this article and colleagues studied the perceptual-motor functions of obese children in laboratory settings. Unpub- lished data showed that obese children not only displayed less accurate performance in a tracking task than their healthy weight peers, they also experienced difficulties with processing information and decision-making during reac- tion time tasks. They had a significantly higher reaction time than the healthy weight children (11). Given that these fine motor tasks only involved limited movement of the hand and, or, arm(s), the lower motor competence in obese children cannot solely be explained from a mechanical perspective. As a result, we hypothesised that obese children would have more difficulties turning sensory Key notes  We evaluated the effects of a 10-month multidisciplin- ary residential treatment programme on the perceptual- motor function of 26 obese children compared to healthy weight controls.  The anthropometrics and performance of both groups were assessed twice, 10 months apart, based on simple and choice reaction time tasks and a tracking task using a stylus and tablet.  Taking part in a multidisciplinary residential treatment programme improved the perceptual-motor function of the obese children. ©2015 Foundation Acta Pædiatrica. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd 2015 104, pp. e263–e270 e263 Acta Pædiatrica ISSN 0803-5253