A Brief History of Pediatric Exercise Physiology

The European Group of Pediatric Work Physiology is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its inception in Berlin (Germany), 1967.It was a modest beginning, which placed the field of pediatric exercise physiology "on the exercise physiology map."We take this opportunity to provide a brief history of our field, its beginnings, its growth and development, and its potential directions in maturity.The focus of pediatric exercise physiology is on the effects of exercise training and physical activity on the growth and development of physiological systems and their responses to physical loading.Beyond the typical, normally developing child, our "subjects" run the gamut from elite young athletes to children with chronic illness and disability.Over the years, the field of pediatric exercise physiology has undergone several transitions and shifts in direction.Initially, the emphasis was on the effect that exercise and training may have on growth and development.That is, the underlying paradigm of the field emphasized the developing physiological systems as the dependent variables, whereas physical activity, exercise, and training were the independent effectors.The focus of study shifted from the effect of exercise and training on fitness, and physiological systems (eg, cardiovascular, respiratory, skeletal), to the effects of physical activity and training on health and risk factors of disease.In recent years, however, the paradigm, to a large extent, has been reversed: Many studies today are focused on the effect that physical, social, or environmental factors have on physical activity during youth.That is, physical activity has become the dependent, rather than the independent variable.This latter paradigm reflects public health concerns that low levels of physical activity among youths have detrimental implications to adult health.This transformation of paradigm can be viewed as an indication of the impact of earlier studies in our field, which demonstrated beneficial effect of physical activity and training on children's healthy development. ConceptionPediatric exercise physiology may be regarded as a subfield of exercise physiology.In the 1950s and 1960s, much of the knowledge of physiological functioning during exercise was derived from adults, particularly males, and not from children or adolescents.In 1967, in a café in Berlin, a group of 8 scientists met over a few liters of German beer to discuss children and exercise.These pioneers, led by Professor Joseph Ruttenfranz, decided to organize a small conference dedicated to pediatric work physiology in Dortmund, in 1968.