Fit and vigilant: the relationship between poorer aerobic fitness and failures in sustained attention during preadolescence.

UNLABELLED With the growing trend toward engagement in sedentary behaviors during childhood, a greater understanding of the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness and cognition during development is of increasing importance. OBJECTIVE The aim of this investigation was to assess the extent to which failures in sustained attention may underlie deficits in cognition associated with poorer aerobic fitness. METHOD A sample of 62 preadolescent children between the ages of 9 and 10 years were separated into higher- and lower-fit groups according to their cardiorespiratory fitness. RESULTS Findings indicated that lower-fit children exhibited poorer overall response accuracy during a task requiring aspects of cognitive control relative to their higher-fit counterparts, with a disproportionately greater number of errors of omission, and longer, more frequent sequential errors of omission. CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest that poorer vigilance may contribute to deficits in cognitive control associated with poorer aerobic fitness.